Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN IRELAND

Action for Community Employment

Rev. Martin Smyth: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what representations have been received concerning proposed further reductions in the ACE schemes. [16359]

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Michael Ancram): Representations have been made to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister by the four Northern Ireland party leaders, and by a number of organisations and individuals directly to my noble Friend Baroness Denton and the Training and Employment Agency. In the 1995 and 1996 public expenditure surveys, resources allocated to ACE were reduced by 25 per cent. and 28 per cent. respectively, with the loss of 2,000 ACE posts each year.

Rev. Martin Smyth: At a time of continuing high unemployment in some parts of Northern Ireland, which are crying out for better training, and at a time when training has been cut in other areas, is it not wrong to cut the ACE scheme, which has provided useful training and helped unemployed people to gain employment? Is the Minister aware that further cuts will bite into the core trainers while also damaging the disabled and elderly in the social community?

Mr. Ancram: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's concern, but he must be aware that unemployment has fallen considerably in Northern Ireland. We must consider priorities within available resources. Unemployment has fallen from 17.2 per cent. in 1986 to 9.2 per cent. now, and 53,000 people have come off the unemployment register in that time. There are 7,200 unfilled vacancies at the training and employment agency. Long-term unemployment, which is specifically important in this area, has dropped by 17.8 per cent. during the last year.
Against that, we have the priority of the Government's responsibility to provide for the security of the people of Northern Ireland, as we are required to do. We have made it clear that, because of the changed circumstances, we are having to look across the board for £120 million over three years. I think that the people of Northern Ireland would expect the money to be spent on preserving their

security, and I feel that we should pay tribute to the security forces and the police for the success that they have achieved recently as a result of that expenditure.

Rev. William McCrea: The ACE scheme has been very important and successful, dealing with long-term unemployment in all parts of Northern Ireland. It has been operating for 16 years and has consistently exceeded the targets set for it. In the light of that, and given that long-term unemployment in Northern Ireland is two to three times higher than it is in Great Britain, why have the Government used the hatchet on the ACE project, to the detriment of our long-term unemployed? Does he accept that the decision is resented throughout Northern Ireland and ought to be changed?

Mr. Ancram: I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the cost of preserving security in Northern Ireland in the face of terrorist activity is a priority. I do not think that he is alone in resenting the fact that the cost of doing that must be borne by other programmes in the Province. That is the message that we should be getting across—that the best way of achieving the results that we want for both the long-term and the short-term unemployed is to bring about peace in the Province, with a growing economy and the creation of more jobs.

Mr. Robert McCartney: Does the Minister agree that penalising education, health and the long-term unemployed on the basis that the Government are discharging their primary function of protecting the lives and property of the citizens of Northern Ireland is entirely wrong and amounts to hostage taking? The Government are saying, "If you do not behave yourselves, or if a small section of you do not behave themselves, we shall punish the most vulnerable members of society as a whole."

Mr. Ancram: I am sorry that the hon. and learned Gentleman takes that attitude. When there was a ceasefire, security requirements were being reduced and money was available as a result, I did not hear him say that we should not spend that money on education, health and employment programmes. In fact, I suspect that he welcomed our actions. The corollary is that, when security requirements are reintroduced as a result of changes in the security situation, everyone must share the pain.

Mr. Illsley: Do not the cuts to the ACE schemes amount to well over 50 per cent., with a loss of 2,000 jobs? Fifty per cent. of the core jobs have also been lost, which threatens some of the ACE schemes and some vitally needed services, despite the overwhelming success of the ACE schemes and the overwhelming opposition from all the parties in Northern Ireland to the cuts. The Training and Employment Agency's review of long-term unemployment, which was due last October, has still not yet been published. Will the Minister delay implementation of further cuts until we have had a chance to consider that document?

Mr. Ancram: We hope that the report will be published fairly soon. It is easy for the hon. Gentleman to make those criticisms from the Dispatch Box, but if he is saying—as he appeared to be—that we should not be making these cuts within the bloc, it behoves him to say where we should be making cuts instead. We have to


decide on the priorities in the light of falling unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment. There are other priorities and we have to take hard decisions at this time because of the security situation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, as an Opposition spokesman, will bear his share of the responsibility for making the same message as I am.

Peace Process

Mr. Alton: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what recent discussions he has held with his counterparts in the Irish Government and with the representatives of Northern Ireland's political parties on the peace process; and what progress has been made. [16360]

Mr. Canavan: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the development of the peace process. [16364]

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Sir Patrick Mayhew): There has been intensive contact with the participants in the talks, including the Irish Government. On 7 February I met the Irish Foreign Minister and we discussed several issues, including the development of the process. The talks process continues to offer the best opportunity of securing a political settlement underpinning a true and lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Alton: Although I welcome the continued efforts of both Governments to find a peaceful solution to the problems of Northern Ireland, does the Secretary of State agree that the major impediment to making progress is the continued and sustained use of violence in Northern Ireland, not least through punishment beatings and intimidation on estates and in neighbourhoods, where people—and especially young people—are being systematically abused? Is the Secretary of State aware that only last night a 19-year-old girl was abducted from a taxi rank in Armagh, held at a lamp post, covered in paint, beaten up and left with a placard around her neck? Earlier this week a 19-year-old was set about with a club with nails attached and a 12-year-old child was set about with a baseball bat by a gang of thugs. At a rate of 15 to 20 attacks per week, is not such intimidation and terror holding up the whole possibility of peaceful progress being made?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. Unfortunately that is only part of the things that are holding up the development of this process. The Chief Constable has calculated that attacks on the security forces have been taking place at an average rate of about one every 30 hours since the beginning of this year. There can be no place in a democracy for violence perpetrated for political reasons. Only if and when those who seek to participate in the talks which are continuing make it credibly clear that they have set aside violence for ever will they cease to exclude themselves.

Mr. Canavan: As this may be the Secretary of State's last ever Question Time, will he take this opportunity to make an announcement today which might help to further the peace process, especially as the marching season is due to begin again next month?
Will he announce the Government's intention to implement in full the recommendation of Dr. North's review, including the establishment of a parades commission with powers to make determinations, if necessary, to avoid the kind of ugly confrontations that took place at Drumcree last year and the year before? At that time, the so-called rule of law was replaced by mob rule, with the support of certain hon. Members of the House who put their own selfish interests and those of their party before the interests of the broader community.

Sir Patrick Mayhew: I hesitate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I am looking forward to having another Question Time before I hang up these boots. I know the interest that the hon. Gentleman takes and the sincere concern that he has for the development of democracy in Northern Ireland. I made the Government's response clear two or three weeks ago in the House, when the North report was published. We accepted at once part of the recommendations. We thought it prudent—and we have been supported in this very widely thereafter—to consult up to the end of March on the remaining parts, and that is what we are doing. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to be concerned that there should not be a repetition in this marching season of the terrible events of last year, and I share his concern.

Mr. Trimble: Will the Secretary of State make it clear in his contacts with the Irish Government that one of the reasons why so little progress has been made in the inter-party talks is the attitude that they have adopted? I am thinking particularly of statements from those close to the Irish Foreign Minister to the effect that talking to us is not worth a penny candle. The Irish Foreign Ministry's representatives constantly attempt to change the terms of the talks to enable Sinn Fein-IRA to enter them fully armed and with the capacity to continue using their weapons. Will the Secretary of State make it clear to the Irish Government that if they are to make a positive contribution to the process a significant change in their policies will be required?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: I do not recognise any distinction between the Irish Government's policy vis-à-vis the entry of Sinn Fein into the talks and our own. Both Governments believe and insist that there should be an unequivocal restoration of a ceasefire that is credible—that is shown to be credible. In doing that, we are merely implementing the ground rules agreed between the two Governments for the conduct of the talks. That is perfectly clear.
I have always found it rather unprofitable to comment on individual statements made from any point in the spectrum and resurrected weeks, months, years or even decades later, and I do not propose to depart from my practice today. I see Irish Ministers frequently, I find their attitude and approach to these extremely difficult matters constructive, and I am grateful for that.

Rev. Ian Paisley: How can the Secretary of State think that by pursuing the conflicting views of members of the Government he can establish confidence? When Stephen Restorick was brutally murdered, the Prime Minister issued a strong statement that the person or persons who


did it would be hunted and would be brought to justice. In the other place, Baroness Denton informed us that people would no doubt have strange feelings that the House
should be contemplating the decommissioning of the weapon which was used to murder Stephen Restorick.
She also referred to the
necessary loss of evidence".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 February 1997; Vol. 578, c. 1041.]
On the one hand, we say that we will follow these people and bring them to justice while on the other hand we carry out a policy that will give them a veritable amnesty. How can the law-abiding citizens of Northern Ireland, who have suffered so much on both sides of the divide, have any confidence?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: The hon. Gentleman ought to be a bit more careful, if he will allow me to say so. There is no question of an amnesty for any offence committed using any weapon. He knows that to be the case as it was explained fully when the House dealt with the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Bill, which was passed with substantial support. Of course it is right that everyone who perpetrates a foul crime, such as the murder of Lance Bombardier Restorick, is pursued with every lawful means. I give that assurance now.
It is also important for weapons to be taken out of circulation. Both Houses of Parliament have recognised the principle that a scheme for the decommissioning, the handing over, the putting out of harm's way of lethal weapons must have a limited immunity from prosecution for the offence, which will be brought to light, of holding that weapon while it is being handed over. That tight limitation is imposed on the amnesty.

Dr. Hendron: The Secretary of State is aware of the unexploded bomb in my constituency of West Belfast last night. He is also aware of the young lady in Armagh whose hair was shaved off and who had paint poured over her head. We also had the horrific murder of Stephen Restorick. Bearing it in mind that the talks process in Castle Buildings will almost certainly be adjourned very shortly because of the impending parliamentary election, will the Secretary of State give an assurance that, whatever Government are in place after the election, those talks will be renewed immediately afterwards and providing that there is an unequivocal and genuine ceasefire—I emphasise the word "genuine"—Sinn Fein will be admitted to the talks?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: I have already this afternoon set out the shared position of both Governments in regard to the last part of the hon. Gentleman's question. As to the first part, it was again due to the extreme professionalism of the security forces that a murderous attack was forestalled last night in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and also in another part of Belfast. That is wholly incompatible with any credibility being attached to professions of seeking peace. As to the future of the talks, that will of course depend on the participants in the talks, but I take great heart from the fact that those participating in the talks have almost universally expressed the desire that, after a period in cold storage, they will resume. It is the intention of everyone that they resume in as positive an environment as possible.

Mr. Dykes: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for clarifying, at least indirectly, in answer to earlier questions the fact that the close relationship between the Irish Government and the United Kingdom Government is one of the important keys to the future success of the longer-term peace process. Does he not agree, however, that despite the massive collective grief that we still feel over the murder of Lance Bombardier Restorick, out of that very sad occasion in Peterborough, which was attended by my right hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney) and others, came inspiration in the extraordinarily wise words of the family of the murdered soldier and in the invitations to the lady who had been in the car when the soldier was murdered and to the rest of her family from Ireland? Is that not on a level with the late Senator Wilson in providing the inspiration of millions of people wanting peace in the Province and in the Republic of Ireland when a small number of extremists on all sides still wish to perpetuate extremism and the exclusive use of continuing vetoes?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: I repeat expressions of appreciation that I have already publicly made for the extraordinary dignity of the response of Lance Bombardier Restorick's parents and couple them with my appreciation of what was said by Mrs. Lorraine McElroy, the passenger in the car. Incidentally, Lance Bombardier Restorick was very concerned that those helping him should know that she had been injured. That is a measure of the type of young man that he was. I very much hope that the contrast between the fineness of the behaviour of that young man, the dignity of what has been said by people, which has already been mentioned today, and the squalor and disgusting character of the crime will have its own effect.

Ms Mowlam: May I identify myself with the comments that the Secretary of State has just made? Does he agree that the job of the parties who have tried to make progress in the talks has been made much harder by the on-going IRA violence and that it must stop immediately? Will he join me in saying that, whatever the outcome of the general election, the talks about a just and peaceful settlement for Northern Ireland will be pursued with every determination? Does he agree that, if Sinn Fein wants to be part of that process, the IRA violence must stop and their warm words about peace must be backed up by actions that prove that they mean it? Will he join me in saying that a new British Government, of whichever party, will be unbending in their opposition to violence but will continue his current willingness to respond positively to a genuine desire for peace?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: I think that many people will take reassurance from what the hon. Lady has said in the latter part of that question. What these people have got to know and learn is that they cannot look forward to being able to turn violence off and then turn violence on again. That is what is meant by the need for a credible, unequivocal ceasefire, a setting aside for good—not just for a tactical period—of the use of violence for political purposes. I agree with what she says about the importance of the talks process.

Education Expenditure

Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the per capita expenditure on education in the current year; what was the equivalent figure in May 1979; and if he will make a statement. [16362]

Mr. Ancram: Expenditure on education per head of population is £846 in 1996–97. In 1979–80, the equivalent figure was £254, or £665 at 1996–97 prices.

Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those figures are a matter for congratulation? Does he further agree that the continuing excellence of education in Northern Ireland owes a great deal to the fact that schools there never gave up proper selection, as the Labour party has sought to do? Labour has constantly opposed selection and Labour Members cannot be trusted when they say that they are eschewing their permanent opposition to it. Whatever they say on education, they cannot be believed in Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales or anywhere else.

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those remarks and I agree with him. Given the education system in Northern Ireland, the results reflect favourably in comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland, 52 per cent. of pupils gain five or more GCSEs at grade C and above, while the figure for Great Britain is some 45 per cent. The same pattern emerges in respect of A-levels. In Northern Ireland, 87 per cent. of pupils achieve at least two A-levels compared with 77 per cent. in England. The figures reflect very well on Northern Ireland's education system. Although a selective system produces good results at the top end of the scale, we must make sure that the low achievers are also well served. The number of pupils leaving school without qualifications in Northern Ireland has dropped considerably and is now below the level for Great Britain.

Mr. Beggs: The figures quoted by the Minister to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) sound well and probably read well to those who do not understand the extreme financial pressure on principals and school governors in medium-sized primary schools and secondary schools which do not receive additional funds through the raising school standards initiatives or which have their funding distorted by the targeting social need fund. May I put it to the Minister that there is something seriously wrong when large sums are flowing to grammar schools under targeting social need? We are annoyed by that. While we condemn the 60 attacks on our schools last year, we are concerned that our pupils are being penalised and punished because of the wanton vandalism and terrorism that the Government have failed to control by improving security measures. When will we have a system of fair and equal distribution of funding to all our children in all our schools in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Ancram: We try as far as possible to reflect the needs within Northern Ireland's education in the formulas by which allocations are made. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not disagree that in the raising school standards initiative we are identifying particular schools where there have been low rates of achievement and specifically addressing funds to those schools.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the formulas and I know where he is coming from on that. The actual allocation to individual schools under TSN has been to a large extent on the basis of the number of free school meal take-ups. I have now asked the boards to look at the assessments that were recently put in place as another equally valid measure of deprivation and need within a particular school in educational terms. The assessments have only just been put in place and we shall have to see how they work in order to use them effectively.
My purpose is to use the scarce funds that are available because of the security situation in the fairest way in an attempt to achieve the best education in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Ian Bruce: I am sure that my right hon. Friend would wish to pay tribute to the excellent work of everyone involved in education in Northern Ireland for keeping normality in the schools and excellence throughout the system. Getting away from security matters for once, will he tell the House what is being done about information technology in schools in Northern Ireland? Are pupils being introduced to the Internet? Are schools getting the computers that they need and are they building the experience that they will need for future employment?

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for moving us away from the security situation. I pay tribute to all those who work in education in Northern Ireland for the way in which they have managed to maintain a high quality of education and provided stability for the children in the recent difficult years. Within available resources, we are anxious for information technology to be introduced to as many schools as possible. The current pattern is varied: some schools are very advanced in their IT provision and some are not. It is encouraging that the universities are beginning to explore the use of new technology in education in a way that will benefit schools and further education colleges in the longer term.

Mr. Worthington: When the Minister allocated money to schools this year, what calculation did he make of the number of teachers who would lose their jobs and the impact of that on the pupil-teacher ratio? Is it true that he still does not know how many teachers lost their jobs last year as a consequence of his budget decisions? Why does he not know the consequences of his actions?

Mr. Ancram: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the pupil-teacher ratio in Northern Ireland is better than in Great Britain. We take some pride in that. The boards have to decide their financial plans. Until those plans are before us, we cannot make an exact assessment. In my guidance to the boards, I have always tried to ensure that classroom provision is maintained, even if that has meant some difficult cuts in other areas such as youth provision, libraries and, as I announced on Tuesday, a smaller than usual capital programme. I have skewed the priorities to ensure that provision in the classroom remains at the top of the list, because that is the key to education.

Northern Ireland Forum

Mr. David Shaw: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which of the groups that were successful


in the election to the Northern Ireland Forum have expressed support for a ceasefire and a peaceful solution to problems in the Province; and which have not. [16363]

Mr. Ancram: Of the 10 political parties elected to the negotiations in the election of 30 May last year, nine have expressed their commitment to the six Mitchell principles of democracy and non-violence, as they are required to do on entry to the talks process. The remaining party, Sinn Fein, remains outside the talks process and will continue to do so until an unequivocal restoration of the IRA ceasefire is in place.

Mr. Shaw: Does my hon. Friend agree that the loyalist community—as well as some nationalists—have shown a real desire to resist the recent violent provocations? Does he also agree that the credibility of Sinn Fein-IRA is as low as it can be and we do not yet see any opportunity for them to condemn violence? Should they not be condemned for taking that position?

Mr. Ancram: I make no bones about condemning the recent activities, which can be described only as murderous, vicious and cowardly. That includes the shooting of Lance Bombardier Restorick for which, I understand, the IRA has finally claimed responsibility. It is clear to everyone in Northern Ireland that, far from moving towards the commitment to exclusively peaceful methods and the adherence to democratic principles required of Sinn Fein if it wants to become part of the talks process, the activities of the IRA are making the credibility gap ever wider.

Mr. Livingstone: Given the Government's clear determination to exclude Sinn Fein until the IRA campaign stops, and given the frequent statements from the republican leadership that it has no intention of restoring the ceasefire, does the Minister have any proposals for increased security measures to defeat the IRA campaign—or are the people of Northern Ireland doomed to live with the situation for ever?

Mr. Ancram: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's concern about security. We have noted carefully—in the light of some of the companionship that he enjoys—his injunctions on the Government to increase security measures. The British Government are not alone: the Irish Government have also made it clear that an unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire is necessary for Sinn Fein to participate in the negotiations. The reason for that is simple: the negotiations can proceed only on the basis of confidence. When there is direct or indirect duress or threat of resumed violence from one party if it does not get its way, the negotiations cannot proceed.
If that party signs up to democratic principles and exclusively peaceful methods, that confidence can be created, and it can become part of the negotiations.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best contribution that the United Kingdom Government can make to a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland is consistently to promote, advocate and support the status and integrity of Northern Ireland within the UK and consistently to praise and express appreciation for all

the political parties in Northern Ireland—not least the Official Unionist party—for their very positive contribution to a peaceful solution?

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments, which I am sure will have been heard by hon. Members on the Opposition Benches. In the democracy that is the United Kingdom, the Government are totally committed to ensuring that the democratic wishes of the people of Northern Ireland in relation to the status of Northern Ireland are supported and promoted.

Mr. Barnes: Has the Minister noticed that the Northern Ireland Forum is quite an interesting body? It has been boycotted by Sinn Fein from the start, and is now boycotted by the SDLP. It is therefore virtually a Unionist organisation, yet it has passed some quite radical motions: on water privatisation, on the establishment of a disability rights commission, and, against the Government's position, on BSE. Is it not therefore rather strange that the Unionists adopt a rather different position in this House from the unanimous one adopted in the Northern Ireland Forum, which acts rather like a Labour party conference—or should I say, an old Labour party conference?

Mr. Ancram: As the hon. Gentleman will recall, the Northern Ireland Forum was set up with the purpose of promoting dialogue and understanding. I have to say that I am not sure whether some of the things it discusses would necessarily fit easily into that definition, but it has produced some very interesting comments on certain issues, and, as he knows, I have taken account of some of them.

Security Situation

Mr. Wilkinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will make a statement on the implications for the political peace process in Northern Ireland of the current security situation. [16365]

Sir Patrick Mayhew: The IRA continues its murderous attacks, indifferent to whom it may kill or maim. In the absence of the IRA declaring and implementing an unequivocal ceasefire that is credible, Sinn Fein continues to exclude itself from the process of talks. With or without its participation, we shall continue to further the process of inclusive and comprehensive talks.

Mr. Wilkinson: Is it not time to pay tribute to the steadfastness of my right hon. and learned Friend and his ministerial team in their insistence that the governance of Northern Ireland shall always be democratically decided, and will never change in response to intimidation, fear, any atrocity or any political pressure that is imposed by the apologists of violence such as Sinn Fein?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: We are certainly steadfast in that policy and in that cause. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said. It is slightly unnerving to have a tribute paid to one in this post.

Sir James Molyneaux: Does the Secretary of State agree that the most significant impact on all the


proceedings is the emerging fact that Sinn Fein-IRA totally abhors the principle of consent, and has thereby lost all sympathy and support throughout the world? Does he agree that this is the time for progress on the restoration of practical measures to restore effective administration to the people of Northern Ireland?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that Sinn Fein and the IRA have steadfastly refused to endorse the principle of consent, thereby, of course, refusing to endorse the foundation of democracy. I very much wish that greater responsibility was able to be exercised by people elected for that purpose in Northern Ireland. It is the purpose of the talks process to find a means by which, based on consent and comprehensive agreement, that can be achieved.
As I approach the end of my tenure, I am no more enamoured of direct rule than I was at the very beginning. About the first thing that I said in public was that I needed to enhance democratic responsibility in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Bellingham: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that currently one of the most distasteful sights in Northern Ireland is the unauthorised IRA signs in South Armagh proclaiming "Sniper at Work"? Does he agree that they are an insult not only to the family of the lance-bombardier but to all those residents who expressed their dismay over his murder? Whose responsibility are those signs, and when will they be taken down?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: I very much agree with my hon. Friend's comments on the signs. I think that they are an insult, and that they are provocative and revolting. I understand that they are occasionally taken down. I will write to my hon. Friend, if he will allow me to do so, about the implications of his question.

Mr. Winnick: Is it not of interest that, following the cowardly murder last week of the British soldier, the Taoiseach made it perfectly clear that those responsible—the IRA—were the dedicated enemies of the Republic of Ireland, as indeed they are of Northern Ireland and of the entire United Kingdom? No doubt the Taoiseach will make his views quite clear when he speaks at Monday's meeting in Dublin of the British-Irish parliamentary body. Is it not important for the IRA to realise that murdering British soldiers will not in any way bring a united Ireland one step nearer, that such murders are totally unjustified, and that those who commit them are committing crimes against humanity?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: I warmly endorse the hon. Gentleman's comments, and pay tribute to his holding consistently to those views and to his expression of them. I noticed that Mr. Bruton, the Taoiseach, said recently:
The IRA campaign is anti-Irish and contrary to the interests of all in Ireland.
I pay tribute to that comment, and endorse it. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that no amount of violence or of criminal murderous activity will deflect the Government or those in the security forces who steadfastly serve all the people of Northern Ireland from their duty—which is to uphold democracy and to protect the rule of law.

Ms Mowlam: Does the Secretary of State agree that progress on this summer's parades have implications also

for political progress? With that in mind, we welcome the measures he announced yesterday in response to recommendations in the North report. Will he now tell the House when he expects to announce the membership of the Parades Commission? As he is halfway through his further consultation, will he also tell us what additional information he has gained from the submissions made to him on the nature of the powers that the commission should have?

Sir Patrick Mayhew: It is premature to say anything about the nature of the submissions or about the results of the consultation when the consultation is incomplete. It will be completed at the end of March, and we have a genuinely open mind until then. I hope to be able to announce the composition of the commission fairly shortly. We attach great importance to its establishment and to its early assumption of those powers that we have accepted straight away as being proper.

Youth Unemployment

Sir Fergus Montgomery: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on youth unemployment in Northern Ireland. [16366]

Mr. Ancram: At 9 January 1997, there were 17,130 unemployed young people, aged under 25, in Northern Ireland. That is a decrease of 3,594, or 17.3 per cent., in the past year. The decreases in unemployment are evident in all parts of the Province.

Sir Fergus Montgomery: Does my hon. Friend agree that those figures are very good news for young people in Northern Ireland, and a tribute to the economic policies that have been pursued by the Government? Has not inward investment also played an important part in the decrease in unemployment?

Mr. Ancram: Indeed it has, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. It is also interesting to note that, in September 1996, employment was at the highest September figure ever. That also bodes well for the Province. The decrease reflects the fact that there has been much inward investment. The Government's economic policies have been good. Particularly by not signing up for the social chapter, we have managed to attract industry to Northern Ireland which otherwise would not have come.

Mr. William Ross: On the basis that the devil will always find work for idle hands to do, will the Minister examine very carefully the strange imbalance between male and female unemployment rates in Northern Ireland, and confirm that those rates are mirrored in youth unemployment? What does he intend to do this summer to give work to young people to take them off the streets?

Mr. Ancram: I will look into that, but I do not have an answer at the moment. I will ask my noble Friend Baroness Denton, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman. We are concerned about the marginalisation of young people in Northern Ireland, precisely because of the activities that the young unemployed can get up to. Unemployment is a priority in the Department of


Education, and an interdepartmental working group is addressing the issue. I hope that it will report later this year.

Dr. Godman: Does the Minister agree that many unemployed youngsters are badly handicapped in the labour market by their appalling lack of educational qualifications? Is it not time for a radical reappraisal of the policy for targeting social needs funds? Those funds should be wholly directed to schools in deprived areas.

Mr. Ancram: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, we are directing money, through targeting social needs funds, to specific schools, and the results are shown in the substantial reduction in the number leaving schools without qualifications. The greatest improvement for the unemployed, young or old, in Northern Ireland would be for peace to be restored, so that the economy could grow and jobs be created.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 27 February. [16389]

The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

Mr. Gerrard: While the victims of Gulf war syndrome continue to suffer illness and are denied compensation, is it not a disgrace that no one in the Government is prepared to accept any personal responsibility for what has happened? As there is no doubt that service personnel and their families were seriously misled by the Ministry of Defence, does not that denial of responsibility prove that the assessment by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) of the Secretary of State for Defence as "not honourable" was spot on?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman is genuinely concerned about the question of compensation, he will know that service personnel in this country can claim compensation for loss or injury caused by negligent action. There is a satisfactory way to do that. In order to consider compensation claims fairly, we need to establish what caused the ailments. There have been a series of inquiries, which are continuing, as my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces has reported to the House.

Mr. Butterfill: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the procedure whereby the minutes of the meetings between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England are published is healthy, because it leads to open government? Does he further agree that any Chancellor who abandoned that procedure might leave himself open to the suspicion that he was trying to fudge things on the economy?

The Prime Minister: Such a suspicion might be there. I think many people might be suspicious about why the

shadow Chancellor is talking about a Budget this summer, were he to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hardly believe that it would be a Budget that reduced taxation. If the right hon. Gentleman has a Budget of a different type in mind, perhaps—like one of his predecessors as shadow Chancellor—he might care to publish it before the election.

Mr. Blair: May I refer the Prime Minister back to the subject of the Ministry of Defence, and ask him about the Defence Select Committee report this morning into defence medical services? Does he agree with the report's central conclusion that so badly has the Ministry of Defence managed change that either we would send our troops into a crisis without proper medical back-up, or we would have to limit the number of troops we sent? That is a shocking conclusion. Do the Government accept it?

The Prime Minister: Of course we will examine the report of the Defence Select Committee. [Interruption.] I think the House would expect me to examine a report by hon. Members before I responded to a long and detailed report that I have not yet had the opportunity to read. If I were to respond in any other way, the House would ask how I could have known. I can say to the right hon. Gentleman that, although I have not yet read the report myself—but I most certainly will—I have been advised that the defence medical services can provide the medical support necessary to assist British troops on operational deployments, as they have done in the Gulf and in Bosnia. I have received that advice from the Ministry of Defence. But I reiterate the point that, of course, if a Select Committee reports, I shall examine that report carefully, and we shall respond in the usual fashion when the examination is completed.

Mr. Blair: I thank the Prime Minister for that, but he should be aware that precisely the same assurances were given two years ago, and the Defence Select Committee examined them and found them ultimately to be worthless. The language used in the report is fairly strong, saying that the situation is so serious that the service cannot recover, and that
No amount of self-justification can disguise
the state of the service. The Prime Minister said that he wanted to examine the report. That is fair enough, but if, having examined it, he finds that its findings are accurate, which Minister will take responsibility?

The Prime Minister: I think that we had better wait for the examination and see what the outcome is. The right hon. Gentleman is keen to determine blame before there is any certainty that there is any blame to be determined. I suggest that he wait until we have examined the report, as of course we shall. There has been some restructuring of the defence medical services, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. I welcome the Committee's endorsement, which he did not mention, of the new secondary care structures. That is very welcome.

Mr. Rooker: So you have read it.

The Prime Minister: I have not read the report-but I have received preliminary advice on it, and I shall read it. When I have read it, I shall report upon it in full. Let me return from the side issue raised by the hon. Member


for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) to the question asked by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). I think that Select Committee reports require more attention than just a summary and one morning, and that is what the report will get from the Government. That may be how the Opposition would respond to reports from the House, but it is not how I respond to them.
Of course there have been teething problems. The Ministry of Defence has recognised that, and we are determined to overcome them.

Mr. Blair: May I point out to the Prime Minister that yesterday we had a highly critical report on Ministers' handling of the use of pesticides in the Gulf war, today the Defence Select Committee says that there is serious doubt about front-line defence capability, as a result of changes that the Government have made, and that next week, apparently, a further report is to be made? I simply ask him: does anyone in this Government ever take responsibility for anything?

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman cares to look at the history of Gulf war syndrome, he will see the action that has been taken. He will also, I hope, acknowledge that my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces came voluntarily and immediately to the House the moment that it was drawn to his attention that he had not been advised accurately by his officials. My hon. Friend did as he should have done, and came immediately to the House.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about responsibility, but he is not in a position to criticise on that front—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh yes, he is."] I am surprised to hear that, because, despite his call for openness in government, when it was found that his office was being funded in an odd way, the right hon. Gentleman would not accept responsibility; and when somebody tried to rig a poll on Radio 4, he said that that was nothing to do with him. No responsibility was accepted for that. When it turns out that the worst 20 education authorities in the country, including Islington, are Labour-run, that, too, is apparently nothing to do with the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Congdon: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the publication of examination results has led to a significant improvement in standards in secondary schools? In the light of that, may I welcome the fact that the results of the tests for 11-year-olds in primary schools will be published school by school? Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government will do all they can to resist the attempts by the unions and the Labour party to undermine those tests?

The Prime Minister: I can certainly offer that assurance. The Labour party has objected to tests from the outset. It is not keen on children being tested, and it is less keen on the test results being made available to parents. Many people who are now used to receiving those test results would resent very much any suggestion from any quarter that that information should no longer be available to parents.

Mr. Ashdown: In his answer to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), the Prime Minister referred to those suffering from Gulf war syndrome as suffering from "ailments". May I remind him that these are not

ailments, but serious illnesses that threaten the quality of people's lives? Is not the question on organophosphates very simple? Which Minister—either personally or through incompetence in his Department—allowed our service men to be exposed to the risk of organophosphates when other Ministers were making it clear that organophosphates were extremely dangerous? Will the Prime Minister comment?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman did not set out the position accurately before he asked his question.

Mr. Ashdown: Yes, I did.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman says that he did—he seems to know more than all the people who have examined the matter for some time. Yet I fear he does not. As usual, he is in the business of scapegoating without knowing the facts.

Dame Jill Knight: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the trade union Unison has been making direct threats against private firms which have had the temerity to put in for contracts with Birmingham city council, to the effect that, should those contracts be granted, strikes, disruptions and go-slows will follow? Is he aware that at least one such firm has been so frightened that it has pulled out of a contract? Will he take steps to get rid of those typical Labour bully-boy tactics, and ensure that there is free and fair competition for the small businesses of Birmingham?

The Prime Minister: rose—

Mr. Prescott: Wait until Wirral.

The Prime Minister: Is not that interesting? The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) says, "Wait until Wirral." He does not address the issue, and he is not concerned about Unison. The Labour party is opposed to privatisation, but the right hon. Gentleman is sponsored by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—which has benefited from privatisation. There is a word for that, and I believe that it is hypocrisy. It seeps out of the deputy leader of the Labour party, who sits there shouting.
On the subject of responsibility, Labour controls Birmingham—it is a Labour council. Let us have some action and responsibility from the leader of the Labour party about the council's activities. Perhaps he can stop talking to his right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East, and listen to what is being said in this House.

Mr. Salmond: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 27 February. [16391]

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Salmond: Does the Prime Minister understand why, after six years, many people will find his reply on compensation for the victims of Gulf war syndrome


totally inadequate? How were people meant to process claims when the Department would not admit to using organophosphates? Does he know that recent estimates of those afflicted by the condition have reached 1,100–10 times those killed and maimed in the original conflict? Therefore, is not the case for compensation overwhelming? Should not someone in his ministerial team have the simple integrity to accept responsibility for six years of departmental dissembling?

The Prime Minister: As far back as 1993, the Ministry of Defence established a medical assessment programme to try to diagnose why Gulf war veterans were ill. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan, having just issued his charge, should listen to what has happened. The methodology of the programme was audited by the Royal College of Physicians and subsequently endorsed in 1995. That programme, which commenced in 1993, did not produce any evidence of a new pattern of illness. None the less, the Government decided that more work needed to be done.
From the outset, we have been determined to find out what caused the illness of troops, so that action could be taken to put it right. In such circumstances, the question of compensation could be dealt with; but we need the facts before that can be done, and the medical committees are still determining what the facts may be. However the hon. Gentleman and the leader of the Labour party may try to bend reality, it is necessary to establish those facts, so that we can provide the compensation and medical treatment that may be necessary.

Mr. Rathbone: Whatever difficulties our forces may have faced in the Gulf, will my right hon. Friend reiterate the Government's support for the Reserve Army, and especially the territorials?

The Prime Minister: I am happy to do that.

Mr. Welsh: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 27 February. [16392]

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Welsh: Will the Prime Minister admit that the Government's failure to resolve the BSE crisis has cost taxpayers billions of pounds and the beef industry

hundreds of millions, and that still there is no end in sight? Given that the latest scheme merely scratches the surface of the problem, when will Scottish farmers be able to escape the ban? Let us have a date; and a real date this time.

The Prime Minister: There was no reason for the imposition of the ban to begin with, but its lifting, alas, is not within the control of the Government or the House. I said that we had negotiated conditions that we had to meet, so that those who imposed the ban could lift it; we have met the conditions, but the lifting of the ban lies with those who imposed it. I should have thought that even the hon. Gentleman could understand that.

Michael Brown: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 27 February. [16390]

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Brown: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to an issue of which I gave him notice? There is a problem in my constituency of stowaways who have been arriving dead, unfortunately, in the holds of small ships arriving at New Holland and Immingham. It appears that the ships originate; Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and I wonder whether my right hon. Friend might ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary to get in touch with the ambassadors or high commissioners of those countries. The people travel in dreadful conditions, and, although they are illegal immigrants, they arrive dead, and something needs to be done about it.

The Prime Minister: I shall certainly ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary to consider that matter. My hon. Friend may also want to discuss the matter with my noble Friend the Minister for Aviation and Shipping. As he may know, the United Kingdom played a leading role in developing guidelines to ensure that stowaways are dealt with promptly and humanely.
The people to whom my hon. Friend refers are patently stowaways, who, despite the usual checks and searches, are not discovered when the ships leave their original ports. We need to examine, with both the host countries and the shipping lines, better arrangements to ensure that people are not hidden away on their ships, as that is clearly the source of the tragedies to which my hon. Friend refers.

Criminal Justice

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Michael Howard): With permission, Madam Speaker—

Madam Speaker: Will the Minister wait a moment until hon. Members have left quietly, so that we can hear his statement? Will hon. Members please leave quietly and quickly? [Interruption.] I do not want to hear the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks); I want to hear the Secretary of State.

Mr. Howard: Thank you, Madam Speaker. With permission, I want to make a statement about improving the speed of justice in England and Wales.
Confidence in any criminal justice system relies on its ability to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent and to do so quickly. Over the past three years, the Government have taken action to even up the scales of justice. At the same time, we have taken action to speed up our criminal justice process.
Progress has been made: in the Crown court, waiting lists fell by a fifth last year, and the number of cases outstanding has been reduced by a quarter. At magistrates courts, the proportion of summary only cases completed at first appearance reached 76 per cent. last year—10 per cent. more than in 1995.
However, more needs to be done. Although the number of indictable cases coming before the magistrates courts fell by 11 per cent. between 1985 and 1995, the average number of days taken to complete a case from the date of the offence increased by 36 per cent., from 98 to 132 days, and the number of adjournments increased by 44 per cent. Entirely proper safeguards for defendants, such as advance information and the reforms introduced in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, have made the process more complex; but on top of that, an adjournment culture has developed. That is why, last autumn, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and I decided to set up a fundamental review of the speed of justice. The review has now been concluded and today I am publishing its report and placing copies in the Library.
The Government see merit in the report and propose to invite interested parties to express their views. We shall reach decisions in due course, having considered those views. The report makes 33 recommendations. One of them, recommendation 23, is now largely superfluous as the Lord Chancellor and the four senior designated judges yesterday approved—subject to certain restrictions—the Law Society's application for rights of audience for employed solicitors in the higher courts. That meets the review's proposal that employed solicitors in the Crown Prosecution Service should be granted rights of audience for plea and directions hearings at the Crown court.
The report's remaining recommendations fall into five main areas. The first deals with bringing alleged offenders to court. Considerable improvements have been made in recent years in the relationship between the police and the CPS. Abbreviated files for guilty pleas dramatically reduce police paperwork. Joint performance management and CPS lawyer surgeries in police stations are delivering improvements. However, the business of getting cases

ready for court still falls into two distinct halves: police preparation of the file, and the review of the file by the CPS. The report recommends that the two halves should be brought together. Some CPS staff should be brought into police stations on a permanent basis, to work with the police in what would visibly be a joint effort in bringing offenders to justice. The independence of the CPS would still be preserved, but independence does not require isolation.
The decision to prosecute would still be subject to two tests: whether the evidence was sufficient, and whether prosecution was in the public interest. However, the report recommends a change to the CPS public interest test, which currently allows a case to be discontinued if the alleged offence is minor, or the likely penalty trivial. That change would assist chief constables to target particular crimes, often of an anti-social nature, which in themselves would not necessarily be regarded as serious, but which can make life a misery for innocent people, creating conditions in which more serious crime can flourish.
One significant cause of delay at present is that the time taken by defendants to obtain legal aid means that cases cannot be brought to court immediately after charge. The report recommends that all defendants who intend to plead guilty should obtain legal advice and representation from the duty solicitor at court. That would be free of charge. It would also be extremely prompt, being given on the morning of the day on which the court appearance took place. That would mean that defendants who pleaded guilty would be dealt with the day after they were charged. The effect would be dramatic: for more than half of all defendants charged, the proceedings could be completed the next day—compared with under 3 per cent. now.
When a defendant pleaded not guilty, an application for legal aid would be made in the normal way, but it would have to be made promptly. The report recommends that courts should insist that defendants who fail to take adequate steps to secure representation or legal aid have to use the duty solicitor in court that day unless they decide not to be represented.
Next, the report recommends that those pleading not guilty should also appear in court the day after charge at an early administrative hearing, to be conducted by the clerk to the justices. At that hearing, the defendant would be told what the court needed in order to consider eligibility for legal aid, and also about the nature of the forthcoming proceedings. Those hearings have been shown substantially to reduce adjournments.
The report also recommends that clerks to the justices should hold pre-trial reviews and be given additional administrative powers very similar to those that they already have in family proceedings. Pre-trial reviews will focus issues of dispute between the parties, so that cases are fully prepared for trial before they are put to magistrates. The principle should be that a case should not go before magistrates until it is ready to proceed and should then proceed without unnecessary adjournment. No one reading the report could fail to be impressed by the evidence from one pre-trial review, completed in one morning and observed by the reviewer, which obviated the need for no fewer than 15 police officers to attend future hearings.
I want to stress, however, that the intention behind extending clerks' powers would be to reinforce the lay magistracy, which has been described, quite rightly, as a


cornerstone of our system of justice. There has been some speculation in the press about stripping magistrates of some of their current powers. The reviewer makes no such recommendation and, had he done so, I would have rejected it.
The next area concerns the youth court. The proposals that I have already described for joint working between the police and the CPS and for legal aid reform would, in themselves, bring offenders to justice at the youth court much more quickly. In addition, the report makes recommendations specific to the youth court. The most important is that 17-year-olds should be returned to the jurisdiction of the adult court, leaving the youth court to deal more promptly with offenders of school-leaving age and below. It was the near-unanimous verdict of all those interviewed by the reviewer that 17-year-old offenders are too sophisticated for the youth court, where they account for about a third of all cases. They tend to be more experienced offenders and are often disruptive and unco-operative.
The second recommendation is that the police should make the decision whether to caution or to charge an offender immediately, rather than—as frequently happens now—refer the case for advice to a multi-agency panel. If there is any doubt, the case should go to the youth court. If the court decides that a caution might be appropriate, it should be able to give one and, when it sees fit, attach conditions to the caution, such as compensation or reparation to the victim. Young offenders would then be in court within days of being caught, rather than, as is frequently the case now, many weeks later.
Finally, the review makes recommendations about cases that go to the Crown court. About 20 per cent. of all those tried in the Crown court—about 24,000 defendants each year—insist on being tried there, despite magistrates having previously decided that the case was more suitable for them to deal with. About two thirds of those defendants then plead guilty at the Crown court. About three quarters are found guilty.
The reviewer recommends that it should be for magistrates to take the decision as to which cases triable either in magistrates courts or the Crown court, such as theft, handling stolen goods or burglary, need to be committed to the higher court. Those seeking Crown court trial without good reason, perhaps simply to delay proceedings, would no longer be able to overrule the magistrates' view that they should try the case. On the other hand, defendants with a good reason for jury trial—perhaps because of the complexity of the case, because they are defending an unblemished reputation or because of the potential effect of a conviction on the individual—would be able to present those reasons to magistrates, who would be free to commit the case.
That is not a new idea. It builds on a very similar recommendation made in 1993 by the royal commission on criminal justice. It recognised the need for a more rational basis for distributing cases between the courts and it noted that, in Scotland, the decision on whether a defendant should be entitled to jury trial is made by the prosecutor.
I recognise that this recommendation is extremely sensitive, as any proposal to restrict the availability of jury trial is bound to arouse strong feelings. Jury trial is a central feature of our system of justice and one to which the Government are entirely committed. We would not

wish to restrict it without very careful thought. On the other hand, the report's recommendation offers substantial advantages. It would divert from the Crown court cases—often of a petty nature—which do not need to be there. It might also make it easier to pursue another of the report's recommendations, also favoured by the royal commission, under which the most serious offences, those triable only at the Crown court, could be handled more effectively and more speedily by starting there from the outset, rather than spending about half their life in magistrates courts awaiting committal.
We shall want to consider both those recommendations particularly carefully in the light of views expressed. If other avenues of approach are suggested, we shall of course consider them. There may also need to be a right of appeal against the magistrates' decision not to allow a case to go to the Crown court and, of course, anyone convicted by magistrates would, as now, have a right of appeal against conviction or sentence to a judge—but not a jury—at the Crown court.
Those are important proposals. More work needs to be done on the extent of the financial implications, and the Government want to listen to the views of those who work in the criminal justice system, on both the principles and the practicality of the recommendations, before making decisions. However, I am confident that, taken together, they could dramatically speed up the prosecution process, bringing the guilty to justice and acquitting the innocent more quickly and at lower cost.
Madam Speaker, let me remind you what the proposals would achieve if implemented. First, all defendants would appear in court the day after they were charged. Fewer than one in five do so now. Secondly, a pilot study has indicated that at least 50 per cent. of those defendants—those who indicate that they would plead guilty—would be convicted the day after they were charged. That happens in only 3 per cent. of cases now. Thirdly, the time taken to bring a young offender to court from the date of his offence—which is currently 10 weeks—would be no more than a few days. That would save the valuable time of all those engaged in the criminal justice process, including witnesses and victims. It would help to ensure that the energies of police officers could be spent protecting the public, rather than going backwards and forwards to magistrates courts.
Justice delayed is justice denied. The proposals have the potential, by drastically reducing delay and restoring the direct and speedy link between detection and conviction, to afford justice more speedily and in much greater measure to victims, to witnesses and to the general public alike.

Mr. Jack Straw: May I first thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in allowing me to see this document in time for me to study it with care? We shall, of course, review it carefully, because it deserves detailed consideration.
Very late though they are, many of the specific proposals contained in today's statement are ones for which we have called, and they have our support. They include the proposal to reduce to 17 the maximum age at which defendants can go to juvenile courts—although I might add that that amounts to a complete reversal of a policy that the Government introduced only six years ago-and the change in the public interest test, to ensure


that more minor offences can be prosecuted where local need requires that. It is doubtful, however, that issuing a consultative document such as this eight weeks before the general election will enable the Secretary of State to regain the initiative on law and order, which the Conservative party has so comprehensively lost.
Is not the real significance of the review published today that, to those who read it, it amounts to a catalogue of neglect and complacency on the part of the Government in their running of the criminal justice system? At long last, the Government have been forced to recognise crucial failings in the system on which the Opposition have demanded action for years, but in many respects, today's announcement is too little, too late. Is it not the case that when in May 1995 I called for major reform of the Crown Prosecution Service, Ministers said that none was needed? Now, the paper is as damning as we have been: it talks of "dislocation" between the police and the CPS and of the CPS "papering over the cracks". However, the proposals for reform—welcome though they are—do not go nearly far enough.
Is it not also the case that when nine months ago we published proposals for a root-and-branch reform of the shambles of the youth justice system, Ministers said that they were doing everything that was needed? Now, the paper confirms exactly what we have said—that it is the near-unanimous opinion of everyone connected with the youth courts that the system is unsatisfactory. The review quotes with approval the view of the distinguished youth justice stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Geoffrey Wicks, that the
largest contribution to youth crime reduction would be the abolition of the youth courts
in their present form. That is exactly what we have proposed.
Given the daily scandal of our youth justice system, in which half those found guilty are let off and in which persistent offenders wait for months and months for trial and offend time and again on bail, why is all that is proposed in this review just another review? Does the Secretary of State not recognise the urgency of establishing a fast-track system for persistent offenders, to halve the time taken between offence and proper punishment, as we have proposed?
Let me now refer to the proposal to end the right of many defendants to elect for trial by jury, even though they may face charges of dishonesty, and their reputation and their whole future may be at stake. I note that in his statement the Secretary of State has been altogether more tentative than those from his office who briefed the Daily Mail this morning. Surely, cutting down the right to jury trial, making the system less fair, is not only wrong but short-sighted, and likely to prove ineffective. I therefore urge the Secretary of State not to accept the proposal.
Is it not the case that that not only is the view of the Opposition and many practitioners and jurists, but was the view of the Secretary of State, at least until today? I wonder whether the Secretary of State has forgotten that in July 1995, in a consultation paper on the mode of trial, he said:
Since currently two thirds of committals to the Crown Court are the result of magistrates' refusing jurisdiction, this has the potential to retain a larger amount of business than by limiting the defendants' right to elect for jury trial.

Has the Secretary of State forgotten that the Government rejected restricting the right to jury trial in favour of that proposal, which is now in section 49 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, passed only last year?
Is the Secretary of State aware that just nine months ago, in his final response to the royal commission, he made the following telling point:
The Government … considers that such a fundamental change to the right to jury trial … should not be undertaken unless it is clear that would be the only possible way of achieving the objective"?
He went on to say that the effects of section 49
will be monitored and the Royal Commission's recommendations reconsidered in the light of the result of that monitoring exercise.
Is the Secretary of State aware that section 49 has not yet even been implemented? Yet he now appears ready to rush ahead to restrict the right of jury trial, breaking the clear undertakings about monitoring the effect of section 49, which he gave only nine months ago.
If a police officer, a Member of Parliament or even a Secretary of State were charged with an offence of dishonesty, would they not insist on being tried by a jury? If that is the case, why should others be denied that right of election?
I also press the Secretary of State on whether the proposal will work as intended. Is he not aware that, despite a reduced case load, during the past 10 years delays in the magistrates court have increased by 50 per cent.—more than in the Crown court? Will not the proposal, forcing mini-trials on magistrates about which court should hear a case, the delays that might occur when there was an interlocutory appeal against a decision, and more contested trials in the magistrates court simply worsen those delays?
Does not the author of the review, Mr. Narey, undermine his whole case by admitting that the
proportion of cases committed to the Crown Court … which are the result of defendant elections has dropped in recent years"—
and that the problem, which can be dealt with in other ways, is that two thirds of referrals to the Crown Court are made, not by the election of the defendant, but by the magistrates alone declining to hear the case in their courts?
As any defendant convicted in a magistrates court has an absolute right to a complete rehearing of his case in the Crown court, might not there be a significant increase in such appeals to the Crown court, thus increasing the Crown court work load, too? That aspect was wholly ignored by the author and the royal commission.
Overall, does not the Home Secretary's statement represent a profound failure of the Government to honour their promises to maintain law and order in our society? Will not the voters of Wirral, South and elsewhere recognise the indelible facts of that failure, given that, after 18 years and 34 separate criminal justice Acts, crime has doubled, while the number of people convicted of those crimes has fallen by a third? There have been 2.5 million more recorded crimes since 1979, but 150,000 fewer people convicted by the courts for those crimes—much more crime, and many more criminals, especially young ones, getting off scot free.
Against that background, was not the former Home Office Minister and Cabinet Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), entirely correct when he said that the Conservative party had "lost the plot" on law and order?

Mr. Howard: I begin by acknowledging the good sense of the first few words of the hon. Gentleman's response to my statement, when he said that the report that I am publishing today deserves detailed consideration; that is indeed what it deserves. Unfortunately, having begun his response in that way, the hon. Gentleman proceeded to dismiss out of hand one of the report's central recommendations.
The hon. Gentleman seems to have entirely overlooked the way in which I dealt with that recommendation in my statement. I said that we would want to consider both that recommendation and the recommendation relating to indictable only offences starting in the Crown court particularly carefully in the light of views expressed, and expressly said that if other avenues of approach were suggested, we would of course consider them. Taken as a whole, however, the report represents a coherent package of measures, which together could have a dramatic impact on delays in our courts. Those of our fellow citizens who come into contact with such delays day after day, in all sorts of capacities—as witnesses, as victims and as jurors—want action to be taken to deal with those delays, and, taken as a whole, the package represents a significant way forward.
The hon. Gentleman referred to his party's proposals to reform the Crown Prosecution Service, and to my initial response to those proposals. It is perfectly true that I opposed Labour's proposals for reform when the hon. Gentleman announced them—because they were the wrong proposals for reform. They would have led to widespread dislocation, and would have been entirely counter-productive.

Mr. Straw: The fast track.

Mr. Howard: "The fast track," says the hon. Gentleman from a sedentary position. I noted that he did not go into any details of his fast-track proposals. That is not surprising. Those who examine his fast-track proposals will find them very illuminating. As with everything else, the figures do not add up. Labour proposes to stop legal aid in cases in which it is hardly ever granted at present, and claims to be able, with those non-existent savings, to deliver a completely non-deliverable pledge. It proposes that stipendiary magistrates should try juveniles, and that lay magistrates should then come along to the same case and sentence them. Those proposals are half-baked, and would not be given house room by any decent think tank.

Mr. James Couchman: My right hon. and learned Friend is right to stress that two thirds of defendants in the either-way cases that go to jury trial end up pleading guilty. That must impose enormous costs on the courts, but more worrying is the delay that it causes for more serious cases that are properly tried by a jury. Would my right hon. and learned Friend care to speculate

on how much of a saving could be made in terms of the current delays in serious trials, which worry so many of us?

Mr. Howard: The reviewer in the report reaches what he regards as the reasonably conservative conclusion that the savings that would result from his proposals overall might amount to something in the region of £110 million a year, of which £70 million would come from the specific proposal relating to the Crown courts. Let me emphasise, however, that those savings—welcome though they would be—are not the prime motive behind the proposals. We want to deal with the delays, with the dreadful inconvenience caused to those who have to go to court and with the extremely damaging effect on justice that is a consequence of those delays. That is the motivation behind the proposals.

Mr. Alex Carlile: I, too, am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for allowing me to see the review earlier today. It contains a number of worthwhile proposals, which we shall certainly consider, and which will speed up the criminal justice system.
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not recognise, however, that one part of the review is extremely badly flawed? I refer to the Soviet-style rewriting of history in the section that deals with the right to elect jury trial. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, ever since defendants were first given the right to give evidence on their own behalf in trials, they have had the right to elect trial by jury? Does he not recognise that that is a fundamental freedom, which is not to be done away with in the cause of saving money?
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman further recognise that, if the proposals on the abolition of the right to elect jury trial were brought into effect, there would be a considerable increase in delays in magistrates courts, unless the Government were to take the view that a large additional number of stipendiary magistrates were to be appointed? Further, does he not recall that when the Crown Prosecution Service was established by the right hon. and learned Member for Tunbridge Wells (Sir P. Mayhew), the independence of the CPS was the benchmark behind its establishment? Does he not agree that the arm's length independence of the CPS remains very important; that while it is, of course, appropriate for police forces to have lawyers in police stations, those lawyers should not be part of the independent CPS, but should be employed by police forces—as is the case in many forces now—and advise those police forces?

Mr. Howard: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for the qualified welcome that he gave to some of the proposals in the report. I do not think that his strictures on the perfectly accurate way in which the report deals with the history of jury trial were at all justified. I believe, as I said at the outset, that the proposal merits very careful consideration, and it has merit in it. I made it plain, immediately before he got to his feet, that we were not putting forward that or any other proposal in the package on financial grounds. I do not say that the savings will not be welcome, but that is not the reason why the proposals were made. They were put forward to speed up the system of justice that we have in this country, and to do away with the delays that disfigure it at the moment. That is extremely important.
As to the hon. and learned Gentleman's last point, I cannot see any justification whatever for erecting a whole new battery of lawyers in the system—lawyers employed by the police. I entirely agree with him and yield to no one in my recognition of the importance of the independence of the CPS. I believe that it has been a valuable addition to our system since it was set up in the early 1980s, but I do not believe, as I said in my statement, that independence need mean isolation. I do not think that that independence will be at all imperilled by the collocation of the CPS and the police in some police stations.

Mr. David Ashby: My right hon. and learned Friend will, perhaps, be aware that I do not agree with him that the right to trial by one's fellow men should be taken away in cases where dishonesty is involved. It is an ancient and well-tried right. One cannot be satisfied by the fact that we are told that two thirds plead guilty. What about the one third who plead not guilty? The whole concept of justice goes with that.
I am very worried that if we go down the road that the report advocates, many trials will have to be heard in the magistrates courts, and one of the problems with magistrates courts is that trials are often disrupted. Magistrates will hear one part one day, another part in a fortnight's time, and another a month after that. That cannot be justice in any sense of the word, but that is what happens. Is there anything in my right hon. and learned Friend's proposals to rectify that problem?

Mr. Howard: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's criticism of the way in which some trials are conducted in magistrates courts and the delays that result from that. I believe that the proposals will go a considerable way towards improving that. The combination of early administrative hearings and pre-trial reviews will enable the justices' clerk to form a view before the case ever reaches the magistrates, for example, that it is a case that is likely to take three or four days to try. The clerk will then be in a position to make available justices for that period, so that the case will be heard in one go, as it should be, and not in the way that my hon. Friend identified, which happens far too frequently at present.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's criticism on that, and hope that some of the proposals will go a long way towards meeting it.

Mr. John Fraser: As someone who acts as a duty solicitor, may I give the Home Secretary two pieces of advice? First, we should be selective, because having a pre-trial review in every case adds to expense, cost and time. Secondly, although it sounds attractive for people to appear in court the day after charge, it presents the police with considerable logistical problems. For example, the policeman may have been on duty all night. If the defendant is not in custody, it is not necessary for him to appear the next day. There should be a close link between the criminal act and its consequences, which is Labour party policy. Many measures are introduced for headlines rather than for effect.

Mr. Howard: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his first point, which we shall take on board. It is an

important matter on which we may want to reflect. As to his second point, I think that there would be considerable advantages in defendants appearing in court the day after they have been charged and, when they intend to plead guilty, being convicted the day after they have been charged. That would be a dramatic improvement in the system. I have every reason to believe that the police will welcome the proposals, not least because they would have that consequence. Shortening the time between the offence and the conviction and sentence may be Labour party policy, but Labour has produced no proposals that would give effect to it.

Mr. John Greenway: In the 10 years I have been in the House, I have seldom heard such good sense from a Minister in a statement. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) said, I believe that we should never have abolished the practice of dealing with people in a magistrates court the day after they are charged, and that it should be reintroduced. It is not a problem for the police service: it certainly was not in my day. I believe that the police will welcome the proposal.
On either-way trials, if we can trust magistrates to decide guilt or innocence, why cannot we trust magistrates to decide whether cases are sufficiently serious to be tried by a jury in a Crown court?

Mr. Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend: there is much in his second point. At the moment, a number of serious offences that would undoubtedly have a considerable effect on someone's reputation are triable only summarily. Assault on a police officer is not an offence that gives rise to a right to trial by jury. The consequences of such an assault could be extremely serious, yet it is a summary only offence. Many serious offences with serious consequences for defendants do not have an automatic right to jury trial. We should weigh that in the balance when we make a final decision on the proposal.

Mr. David Winnick: Given the delays in the criminal justice system, would the proposals be of any assistance to Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence, who, for four years, have done their utmost to see to it that those who murdered their son Stephen are brought to justice? Is that not a glaring example of where the criminal justice system is not working? In those circumstances, is it not right for a newspaper to do what it can to ensure that those whom it believes are guilty of that terrible murder four years ago are brought to justice?

Mr. Howard: I have previously placed my views on that matter on the record. The hon. Gentleman is right to imply that the proposals, which do not pretend to cure every defect in our criminal justice system, would not have had any bearing on that case.

Mr. Winnick: indicated assent.

Mr. Howard: I am glad to see the hon. Gentleman nodding vigorously in assent to that proposition. I hope that he will nod equally vigorously in assent to my second proposition. What might have made a difference in the Lawrence case was the change that we made to the right to silence, which was not in force when that killing was committed. The police take the view that, had that change


been in force, it might have made a difference to the outcome of that investigation and that case. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has not entirely forgotten that that change was opposed root and branch by the Opposition parties and that they spoke and voted against it consistently.

Mr. Graham Riddick: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the criminal fraternity does not like him very much, but that the police to whom I have talked in west Yorkshire think that he has done a superb job in giving them the tools to fight those criminals, and that the result has been that in recent years crime has been falling? Is he aware, however, that the one concern that the police have is the amount of time that it can take for cases to come to court, so the police will no doubt welcome his announcement, which will, I hope, help to speed up the process of justice?

Mr. Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I understand that the police organisations have welcomed the proposals. They will no doubt wish to consider them carefully, but I hope that they will achieve precisely the result that my hon. Friend identified—cutting police paperwork and form filling and enabling the police to spend more time on our streets, helping to protect the public, which is, I hope, what we all want.

Mr. Chris Mullin: Can the Secretary of State remind the House where we are up to on the provision of more secure places for serious persistent young offenders? My recollection is that extra places have been announced about three times, but none has yet materialised. The provision of more secure places is the thing that would make most difference in my constituency, where a handful of persistent young offenders cause mayhem. There is no point speeding up the system, welcome though that is, if it just puts them back on the street to cause mayhem more quickly.

Mr. Howard: The places are coming on stream all the time and we have been financing many of them. Unfortunately, in some regions, local authority social services departments are reluctant to use the secure places that are available, just as, some time ago, Labour and Liberal Democrat-controlled local authorities, including that in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, were reluctant to construct secure accommodation.

Mr. Michael Fabricant: Is not the gravest impediment to justice delays to justice itself? Does not a most gross disfigurement to justice occur when young people are held on remand in prison, sometimes for many months—with old lags and people who try to corrupt them—and ultimately are found innocent? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that his proposals will prevent such impediments to justice from taking place?

Mr. Howard: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am reluctant to claim that any particular proposal or set of proposals will constitute a panacea, but taken as a whole, this package of proposals offers the prospect of substantial advance, of a substantial reduction in delay and of a

substantial improvement in the system, but we shall listen carefully to everything that is said, particularly by those who work in the system, before we reach final decisions.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Very important new discretionary powers are proposed for lay magistrates, and those powers affect the liberty of the subject. In what form will guidance be given to justices on the exercise of that discretion? Will it be possible, for example, to hear applications in camera, in closed courts, in particular circumstances if sensitive matters are involved? Is the Home Secretary really convinced that the lay magistracy as composed now can take on the extra case load that will be generated by the proposals?

Mr. Howard: I believe so, if the other proposals in the package are implemented, as they will relieve many of the burdens that local magistrates suffer. I would envisage that if we proceeded to legislation, the legislation itself would identify the criteria that magistrates would take into account in deciding whether a case should be sent for trial by jury. The hon. Gentleman's proposal about the possibility of their sitting in camera when considering applications for trial by jury is a valuable one, to which we should certainly have regard when we examine the matters in detail.

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: May I warmly welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement, which should help to accelerate criminal justice cases? Can he shed any light on the injustice of innocent people being held on bail? Will the proposals help to reduce the number of people being held on bail and if so, how much would that save the criminal justice system?

Mr. Howard: That is a very difficult estimate to make. I think that there will be such savings. The proposals mean that fewer innocent people will be likely to be held on remand. That is an outcome devoutly to be desired, and, although my hon. Friend did not mean to suggest it, not simply because of the financial savings that would accrue, but because it is important from the point of view of the liberty of the subject. If we succeed in reducing delays, that will have the consequential effects that my hon. Friend identified.

Mr. John Gunnell: At a time when the country is focused on miscarriages of justice, is the Home Secretary convinced that removing from defendants the right to choose a trial by jury will assist in preventing miscarriages of justice? Will it increase them or will it have very little effect?

Mr. Howard: If anything, it will prevent miscarriages of justice or reduce them. The report contains a reference by an extremely experienced magistrate, who says that she has never heard an application or representation made for trial on the ground of a blot on someone's reputation. She says that those who opt for trial by jury are experienced criminals who are playing the system, often in the hope that, for a variety of reasons, one of the witnesses in the case might not turn up and that might enable them to get an acquittal, which would be unjust. Although we must strain to ensure that no innocent people


are convicted, it is also an injustice if those who are guilty are acquitted. The changes may well have the overall effect of reducing injustice in our system.

Dr. Robert Spink: In considering the report and bringing forward proposals, will my right hon. and learned Friend avoid any policy that might lead to the separation of the consideration of juvenile cases from their sentencing? That would be complete nonsense and would lead to tremendous frustration for the victims of crime, who are not mentioned enough in this place. The police would also find it unacceptable.

Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is entirely right. That proposal, emanating from the Labour party through the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), is so eccentric that I find it difficult to believe that the Opposition are seriously putting it forward.

Mr. Paul Flynn: Has the Home Secretary convinced us that there is a need to bring into our constitution the only demand of the Chartist movement 150 years ago that is not part of our law—the demand for annual Parliaments? Is it not extraordinary that today Opposition Members are in the unique and unnerving position of agreeing with the Home Secretary's statement? Is not that entirely because it is a last gasp statement by a death-bed Government?
Will the Home Secretary return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin)? I get precisely the same complaints from police and magistrates in my constituency, who say that there is a tiny group of young people, some of them adults, who are serious offenders, but no action can be taken to stop them committing offences. One such individual was guilty of 50 offences, but cannot be

detained. According to the police and the magistrates, that is not because of problems locally, but because of difficulties emanating from Government action.

Mr. Howard: I think that the hon. Gentleman has been misinformed. I recommend that he' takes the matter up with his local social services department, which should be able to make use of secure accommodation if the youngsters to whom he refers come before the courts. Sometimes they are not dealt with because of the practice of magistrates of not dealing with a defendant who has committed a number of other offences after first coming before the court. The Magistrates Association has recently issued guidance that that practice should no longer be followed. If the proposals substantially reduce delays, fewer offences will be committed between the first offence and the defendant being dealt with, which will have substantial beneficial effects.

Mr. Julian Brazier: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the miscarriages of justice that most concern most of our constituents are those that involve guilty parties going free because of eccentricities, technicalities and delays in the criminal justice system? I congratulate him on applying the energy that he has so far—extremely successfully—focused mostly on serious crime to the equally worrying problems of juvenile and petty crime. I also congratulate him on his carefully thought through package—the legal aid provision, the pre-trial hearings and other measures—which will provide faster justice instead of pious generalisations.

Mr. Howard: Of course, we are all concerned about all miscarriages of justice—the guilty going free from court or the innocent being convicted. We all have to recognise that no human system of justice is likely to be infallible. I believe that the proposals will help to improve the effectiveness of our system of justice, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support.

Business of the House

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): With permission, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week.
MONDAY 3 MARCH—Motion on the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations.
Motions on the Representation of the People (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) Order and the Local Elections (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) (Northern Ireland) Order.
Motion on the Company Accounts (Disclosure of Directors' Emoluments) Regulations.
TUESDAY 4 MARCH—Until 7 o'clock, motions on the Scottish revenue support grant reports. Details will be given in the Official Report.
Motion on the Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Order.
Remaining stages of the Welsh Development Agency Bill.
WEDNESDAY 5 MARCH—Until 2 o'clock, there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Until 7 o'clock, motion on the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 (Continuance) Order.
Motion on the Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order.
THURSDAY 6 MARCH—Debate on public expenditure on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY 7 MARCH—The House will not be sitting.
For the following week I can, once again, give only limited information.
MONDAY 10 MARCH—Opposition Day (7th Allotted Day) (First part).
Until 7 o'clock there will be a debate on an Opposition motion in the names of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru. Subject to be announced.
That will be followed by Government business.
The House will also wish to know that on Wednesday 5 March there will be a debate on the Court of Auditors reports in European Standing Committee B.
Details of the relevant documents will be given in the Official Report.

[Wednesday 5 March

European Standing Committee B—European Community Documents: (a) OJ C340, Court of Auditors' Report for 1995; (b) OJ C395, Court of Auditors' Statement of Assurance for 1995; (c) OJ C395, Court of Auditors' Statement of Assurance for 1995: European Development Funds.

Relevant European Legislation Committee Reports: (a) and (b) HC 36-xii (1996–97); (c) HC 36-xiv (1996–97)

Tuesday 4 March:

The Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 1997; The Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1997; The Special Grant Report (Scotland) on Supplementary Mismatch Scheme Grant for 1997–98. The Special Grant Report (Scotland) on grant in aid of building works at

Dunblane primary school and grant in aid of local authority revenue costs resulting from the Dunblane tragedy.]

Mr. Jeff Rooker: I thank the Leader of the House for that statement. I note that we are to have what I might call yet another Government Supply day next Thursday.
Before asking the Leader of the House about one or two issues that I think should be included in next week's business, I should like to ask him about the business scheduled for Monday. Hon. Members will have seen below the line on the Order Paper several orders relating to the Representation of the People Acts and amendments thereto. Only two of those are scheduled for approval by the House next Monday. Do the Government intend to bring forward the other orders? I am particularly interested in the amendment—an agreed amendment, to the best of my knowledge—to close some of the loopholes and abuses in the absent voting procedures. That important issue is relevant to the democracy of our country. Why is the package not being taken together? My second question on that is: will it be dealt with before the election? It is important, and it requires the approval of the House.
Will the Leader of the House seek to make time in what is clearly a slack period for a debate on the privatisation of the Building Research Establishment—before it is privatised?
Another point, which has been raised repeatedly in the past few months, relates to the mystical building societies Bill. Where is it? Are we going to see it? The Leader of the House is well aware that the Opposition are prepared to facilitate the agreed legislation, for which the industry is desperate. There is clearly a hole in the Government's programme and we would like to know whether that Bill will be put into it.
I should also like to ask the Leader of the House about the non-publication of the report of the inquiry into the Sea Empress disaster, which occurred well over a year ago. Is it to be assumed that the report will not be available before the election? We know that the salvage operation was bungled, leaving 72,000 tonnes of oil in the waters; that, as every television viewer saw for days on end, Ministers showed no interest in intervening even though they had the power to do so; and that the third heavy tug on the western approaches recommended in the Donaldson report was not in place due to the Government's penny pinching.
Answers in the other place in the past few days have indicated that the report was on target for publication in February—yet, in two days' time, it will be March. The implication of the delay is that the Government intend not to let the report see the light of day before the election. Frankly, that is not good enough. It looks as though we can claim legitimately that there has been a cover-up. Will the Leader of the House comment on that and look into the matter?
May I raise the need for a debate and/or statement by the Secretary of State for Defence following the proceedings in the Select Committee on Defence yesterday? He appears not to have shown the slightest interest in the issue of chemicals used in the Gulf war and the effect on our troops. The Minister of State for the Armed Forces is an honourable man, and, contrary to


what has been implied in some of the press reports today, he is not a liar. He has, however, proved himself less than an alert Minister. As everybody knows, and contrary to what the Prime Minister said today, it is a matter of public record that, in October 1995—

Sir Roger Moate: Is this something to do with next week's business?

Mr. Rooker: Yes, next week's business. We need a debate and a statement on the issue. In October 1995, local purchase of organophosphates was referred to in Ministers' civil service briefings in preparation for questions in the House—yet that was never disclosed. How can a Minister dismiss briefings in October 1995 and then claim that Ministers were given clear written advice from the civil service on the issue only in September 1996? The issue is important and there is time for it to be raised on the Floor of the House before Parliament is dissolved.
The Leader of the House will recall that, on 10 December last year, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces said that, due to his previous role as a Minister responsible for farming,
I am extraordinarily aware of the question of OPs".—[Official Report, 10 December 1996; Vol. 287, c. 132.]
None the less, he ignored his own civil service brief. What was the Secretary of State doing? Was he being briefed? If not, was he asking the advisers in the Ministry any questions? If there is a contradiction between a brief and a draft answer, surely Ministers should be asking questions about it. Should not a Minister keep his officials on their toes and be critical at all times? It appears that that has not been so. Although it is clear that we have a sloppy, lazy Minister, who is falling short of his duties, the Secretary of State should carry the can and make a statement to the House on the issue next week.

Mr. Newton: To take the last point first, for a moment I thought that the hon. Gentleman was virtually alone and unaided in initiating a debate on the matter. I am grateful for him at least acknowledging that my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) is an honourable Member and Minister. At the same time, I should make it clear that I do not for one moment accept the rest of his rather abusive remarks about my hon. Friend, and indeed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
I think that my hon. Friend has behaved absolutely properly in making a statement to the House last December—as soon as he reasonably could once new information became available—and in giving extensive evidence yesterday on those matters, quite openly and straightforwardly, to the Defence Select Committee. Beyond that, I will not attempt to add to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on those points during Prime Minister's Question Time. However, I certainly know of no plans for a statement of the type requested by the hon. Gentleman.
As for the Sea Empress, I must again reject any suggestion that some type of cover-up—to use the hon. Gentleman's rather overheated language—is occurring. I will of course bring the points that he has made to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State

for Transport, who has always made it absolutely clear that he wants the matters to be pursued as vigorously, but also as thoroughly, as the incident requires.
I am not quite sure whether the hon. Gentleman will be aware—although I imagine that he has been told—that a good deal of discussion has taken place in the usual channels on the building societies Bill. I can tell him that we do intend to introduce the Bill—on the basis that the Opposition will deliver on the assurance which he has now publicly given on the Floor of the House that they will fully co-operate in passing it speedily, which clearly is the only way in which it can be passed at this time in the Session. I am grateful to him for giving that assurance, and I hope that he will make every endeavour to ensure that they—I was about to say "deliver", but the implication of that word would be offensive, and I certainly do not mean to be offensive in any way. I am grateful for his comments.
On privatisation of the Building Research Establishment, I will draw the hon. Gentleman's request to the attention of my hon. and right hon. Friends. However, I cannot now promise a debate of the type that he suggested.
I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on his point on the various orders.

Mr. James Pawsey: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the enormous confusion among the public about the future of grammar schools? Will he therefore make early arrangements for a debate centred on the future of those schools, particularly because of the contradictory remarks made by Opposition Members? He will be aware that, 16 months ago, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said that grammar schools would be abolished. Matters have apparently changed since then—but we should like to test that. Will he provide us with an opportunity to discuss the issue, either in Government time or—preferably, as it is their fault—in Opposition time, so that we can clear it up?

Madam Speaker: Order. Before we proceed any further, I remind hon. Members that this is not speech time. I do not want to hear speeches, I want to hear direct questions on what will happen next week. I know that the Leader of the House will be good enough to speed up, because I want to move on to other business.

Mr. Newton: One thing that is not within my power is to make commitments on the use of Opposition time. Perhaps the best thing for me to tell my hon. Friend is that those matters are closely related to a piece of legislation currently under discussion in another place. When that legislation returns to the House, there should be opportunities of the type that he seeks.

Mr. David Alton: Has the Leader of the House had a chance to study early-day motion 584?
[That this House records the remarks of the Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Professor Joseph Rotblat, that developments in cloning and genetics 'may result in mass destruction'; welcomes the decision of the White House to urgently reassess the ethical and legal implications of the cloning of a sheep at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to suspend


further experiments involving cloning and transgenic animals, to initiate a wide-ranging public debate and to appoint additional representatives to the Genetics Commission who reflect traditional concerns about the sanctity of human life, who are opposed to the development of eugenics, and who disagree with the Nuffield Council's view that 'species boundaries, in any case, are not inviolable.'.]
The motion—which I tabled, and which is supported by representatives of five of the political parties in the House—calls for a ban on the cloning experiments that have been conducted in Scotland. Will he arrange for a debate next week on that important subject, and for a review of the make-up of the Human Genetics Advisory Commission, so that it is more broadly based and contains dissenting views?

Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that today my hon. Friend the Minister for Science and Technology spoke on both the scientific implications and the effective ethical safeguards that are already in place. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend, and my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Health, will carefully consider the hon. Gentleman's comments.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Will my right hon. Friend consider granting a debate combining the subjects of cloning and grammar schools? Some extravagant claims have been made that the Government's policy on grammar schools has been cloned by the Opposition parties, but that is completely untrue, and the experiments have been fraudulent.

Mr. Newton: From what I hear, the clones appear only in parts of the country where a by-election is taking place.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Will the Leader of the House have a word with the Secretary of State for Transport about the assets of London Transport? Yesterday, we were told that the value of those major assets was unknown and that no reserve price had been suggested for their sale. Perhaps the Leader of the House could draw the attention of the Department of Transport to the list of assets of the London regional transport system, which gave a value of £13 billion for infrastructure, property, rolling stock, equipment and conservation, plus a sum of £29 million per annum for property letting. I would like to know what the Government are playing at.

Mr. Newton: Unless I am to make a speech—which I do not intend to do, in response to your strictures, Madam Speaker—in reply to what sounded suspiciously close to being a speech, my proper course is to draw the hon. Lady's attention to the Secretary of State for Transport's presence in the House to answer questions on Monday 10 March.

Sir Ivan Lawrence: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Government have accepted the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee on the working of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1989. The Committee suggested that although people thought the Act had been implemented too hastily, it was successful and worked, but the time had come to introduce some flexibility. I understand that the Bill sponsored by my hon. Friend the

Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), which has come from the House of Lords, is to be debated in the Chamber and that, with the agreement of both sides, it would reach the Statute Book before the rising of Parliament. Can my right hon. Friend tell the House when the dangerous dogs issue will be debated and the legislation implemented?

Mr. Newton: I cannot give an immediate undertaking about when the issue will be debated. The Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Bill is listed for discussion tomorrow, but it is well down a long list and, in all honesty, it is unlikely to be debated. I hope, however, that the House will agree that the Bill should proceed, so that it can be amended in a way that would reflect the Home Affairs Committee's recommendations.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Forgive my curiosity, but, in his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), the Leader of the House used the phrase "new information" about organophosphates. What new information? Next week, may we have a statement on the increasing practice—which being old-fashioned, I find distasteful—of Ministers blaming civil servants, despite the doctrine of ministerial responsibility? May we have a statement on that doctrine, which seems to have vanished out of the window?

Mr. Newton: I do not for a moment accept the hon. Gentleman's last remarks. As it happens and as he will know, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has been in discussion with Opposition Front Benchers about issues arising from ministerial accountability to the House. I do not recall making any reference to new information—

Mr. Rooker: You did.

Mr. Newton: In that case, I shall read what I said and if I feel that I should correct something or come back to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), I shall.

Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: Will my right hon. Friend provide some time next week to discuss the process of adoption in the United Kingdom? The social services inspectorate report, published in December, highlighted the long wait of up to three years that children in care sometimes have. I know that my right hon. Friend may refer me to a Wednesday morning debate, but he will know how difficult it is to obtain one.

Mr. Newton: I am sure that the occupant of the Chair will have heard my hon. Friend's comments about Wednesday morning debates. She is right to think that I would refer her in that direction, because I could not promise Government time for such a debate in the near future.

Mrs. Alice Mahon: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Royal British Legion is currently seeking judicial review of the proposed cuts affecting war veterans with hearing loss? Will he ask the Secretary of State for Social Security to drop those dreadful cuts and to come to the House and apologise to war veterans? They should have our gratitude, not cuts in their benefits.

Mr. Newton: A meeting was arranged a considerable time before the Royal British Legion's recent


announcement, so perhaps I could simply make the point that the Minister of State, my right hon. and noble Friend Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish, is due to meet the Legion and its advisers on 12 March to discuss those matters.

Mr. John Wilkinson: Will my right hon. Friend initiate a debate early next week on the role of local authorities in the planning process, so that the Minister replying to it can explain how the codes of practice on development plans can be adhered to? That is an issue of the greatest importance not only nationally but to my constituents, who face the problems associated with a socialist borough council that seeks to build social housing on recreation grounds and other green-chain areas.

Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend will have noticed that my ever-assiduous hon. Friend the Minister for Construction, Planning and Energy Efficiency has manifestly been here to note his remarks—and all Environment Ministers will be here to answer questions next Tuesday.

Mr. Harry Barnes: Has the Leader of the House seen early-day motion 563, on the new electoral registers?
[That this House is amazed that, although new electoral registers came into operation on 16th February and that this is an age of fax machines, computers and other forms of modern technology, the Office of National Statistics is unable to publish, until April, even in a provisional form, the total number of people who are on the new electoral registers in England and Wales; and further contrasts this with the touch-button technology used by the National Lottery.]
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that for some time I have been trying to discover the number of people on the electoral registers that have been in force since 16 February. The Northern Ireland figures have been provided, but the wrong figures, a year out of date, have been given for Scotland, and as for the figures for England and Wales, all that has happened is that the date initially offered for providing them—April—has been moved forward by the Prime Minister to late March. Can we not have those figures now? Is there not a great contrast between that arrangement and the national lottery, for which one can discover within two hours how much money has been lodged and how many winners there are? Why can we not know how many people are registered in each constituency? It would be an easy matter to give the House that information, so that it could be used in the future.

Mr. Newton: I am not sure that I see an easy analogy between the electoral register and the national lottery. Clearly the Office for National Statistics has before it a substantial task, which takes time. As the hon. Gentleman has already said, every effort is being made to provide the information that he wants as soon as possible.

Mr. Richard Tracey: May I again try to persuade my right hon. Friend to give time for a debate on standards in education, in which the Government's firm principles on standards in schools could be restated? I imagine that he is aware that this morning the Labour party spokesman on education made some sort of

statement on standards in, of all places, Islington. He will surely recognise that such a debate would allow the Government to state again their principles on standards, as well as allowing the Opposition to explain why they consistently fail to deliver standards in education, despite the fact that the Labour party controls so many education authorities. That is where education is failing in this country, and it is not through any efforts of the Government.

Mr. Newton: I need hardly say that I think that my hon. Friend has made a good point, with which I have great sympathy. However, I am afraid that that does not enable me to promise such a debate, although there will be opportunities to discuss such matters when the Education Bill returns here from another place.

Rev. Martin Smyth: May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to an early-day motion—I believe the number is 329—which has now been signed by 224 members? In fact, the number is 378.
[That this House welcomes the joint appeal by the church councils of both parts of the Sudan entitled 'Here We Stand United in Action for Peace' noting particularly their appeal for international help to oversee a cease-fire and a referendum; and encourages the Foreign Secretary to respond positively.]
Is there a possibility that the Foreign Secretary will come to the House next week to respond to that early-day motion?
I realise that a fair bit of Northern Ireland business has been arranged for next week, but will the right hon. Gentleman be tabling a motion extending the powers of the Northern Ireland Grand Committee?

Mr. Newton: If I heard right, the hon. Gentleman referred to early-day motion 329, which appears to be about digital television set-top boxes. I would not immediately have seen those as a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether my communication system is up to moving from one early-day motion to another so quickly. However, I shall consider what the hon. Gentleman has said, and the relevant early-day motion, as soon as I can.
As for the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I understand that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will write to the Northern Ireland party leaders this afternoon saying that, following consultation, the Government intend to bring before the House a motion amending the Standing Orders of the Northern Ireland Grand Committee.

Mr. Tony Banks: When can we have a debate on London? The right hon. Gentleman has been asked before about policing in London, but we could have a debate on London as a whole. We could discuss the absurd proposal to flog off, or rather give away, London Underground, and also the real differences between the two parties over the plans for London. We could discuss a strategic authority for London, as well as an elected mayor. We need that debate. May we have it before the general election, whenever that will be?

Mr. Newton: That all sounds most interesting, but I cannot add to what I have said in previous weeks.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: May we have an early debate on the problems facing small businesses, especially


small bookshops? Is the Leader of the House aware that when I popped into Books Etc at lunchtime to try to buy a copy of "Sleaze—the corruption of Parliament", I was told that all copies had been removed from the bookshelves because solicitors acting for the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) had threatened the proprietors of the shop? Does that not raise wider questions? In the run-up to the general election such a book, detailing the hon. Gentleman's activities, should be widely available. Freedom of information in this crucial period is most important.

Mr. Newton: May I make two points? First, as I have said on several comparable occasions recently, I am Chairman of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, and various things before that Committee are not unrelated to what the hon. Gentleman has said. My second point, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will consider, is that he was again raising on the Floor of the House a matter already under consideration in the proper way. Frankly, I do not think that he should do that.

Mr. Hugh Bayley: Has the Leader of the House seen the news reports this morning telling us that MTL, the company that has been offered the Regional Railways North East franchise, is planning to get rid of 1,200 of its staff—40 per cent. of the work force—many of whom live in my constituency? That is a matter of intense public interest, because MTL's Regional Railways operation does not make a profit; it is a loss-making business, subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of £1,200 million under the franchising agreement.
The House needs reassurance that after the cuts the public will still get the railway services for which the taxpayer is paying. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Transport to meet the company as a matter of urgency, and then to make a statement to the House before the franchise agreement is finally signed, so that we know whether taxpayers' money will be used for the purposes for which it was voted?

Mr. Newton: I shall of course convey that request to my right hon. Friend, but the hon. Gentleman might also mention the facts that the firm has guaranteed existing train mileage and promised service improvement, will introduce new rolling stock and is committed to deliver a better quality service.

Mr. John Austin-Walker: The Leader of the House may recall that I have raised on an earlier occasion my concern, expressed in early-day motion 404, about the inquest procedures relating to the death of my constituent, Kenneth Severin.
[That this House believes that it is in the interests of justice for all parties to go into an inquest hearing with the same amount of information; notes that there is no formal procedure for disclosure in inquest cases; draws attention to the Annual Report of the Police Complaints Authority 1995–96 which expressed concern that at some inquests those representing the police may have material not available to the representatives of other interested parties, particularly the family of the deceased, thus giving a strong impression of injustice; notes that the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, Judge Tumim has made similar comments expressing the view that it is in the interests of justice for all parties to go into an inquest

hearing with the same amount of information; draws attention to the difficulties faced by the family and representatives of Kenneth Severin who died in suspicious circumstances in HM Prison Belmarsh; and calls upon the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor to review the rights of the deceased person's family in such cases and to institute rights of disclosure as recommended by the Police Complaints Authority.]
I have now had the opportunity to read the coroner's recommendations in that case, and to see other papers concerning Kenneth Severin's treatment. In view of those recommendations, would it be possible to have an early debate not only on the circumstances of Kenneth Severin's death but on the situation of all persons in need of psychiatric care who, through failures in the system, find themselves in prison and meet a brutal end? That would not only be to the benefit of Kenneth Severin's family, but might help to prevent more such tragedies.

Mr. Newton: I immediately acknowledge the importance of the general issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised in connection with that case, although I am not in a position to comment on the particular case. I am sure that his request will be carefully weighed by the Ministers concerned. I shall keep it in mind, but the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot immediately promise a debate.

Mr. Alan W. Williams: Can the Leader of the House tell us when the report on the Sea Empress disaster will be published? It is now more than a year since the disaster. The Government refused to set up a public inquiry, and instead set up an internal Department of Transport inquiry. It seems that they are now delaying the publication of the report. Is that not a shabby way to treat the people of Pembrokeshire and Wales and the well-being of the environment?

Mr. Newton: I know of no basis for the kind of language used by the hon. Gentleman, which matches the phrase "cover-up" used by his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). I cannot add to what I said earlier. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will look carefully at the hon. Gentleman's comments, as it is the wish of us all that this matter is properly investigated and that the facts are established at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. John Gunnell: Has the Leader of the House anything to add to his statement of some months ago about the Easter recess? I hear many rumours—most, I think, emanating from Conservative Members—which suggest that he is likely to alter the date so that Members will have the week before Easter for electioneering purposes in their constituencies and that we will be brought back to dissolve Parliament in the time that he had originally announced for the Easter recess. Is he able to make a further comment on the recess? If not, when will he be able to do so?

Mr. Newton: First, I do not see how I can be accused of making an alteration to a date that I have never announced. I have said nothing about the Easter recess. All that I can say is that it will be in the vicinity of Easter.

Mr. Paul Flynn: When can we debate the extraordinary behaviour of this dying Government and


their announcement of the privatisation of London Underground: a scheme for which they do not know the cost, as they do not know the value of London Underground; a scheme for which they have three separate ideas for privatisation on which they have not yet decided; and a scheme that is sensible in investment terms only if there is an absolute guarantee that the Conservatives will win the general election?
We should compare the Government's reaction on that matter—on which they have moved with the speed of a cobra—with the way in which they have behaved with the report on the Sea Empress. The report is ready, it has been printed and—we know—it is available. The Leader of the House says that he has not been properly informed, but if he wishes to absolve himself from the accusation of taking part in a cover-up will he guarantee that, next week, he will tell us when the report is to be published?

Mr. Newton: What I can tell the hon. Gentleman, and what I have told one or two others, is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport—to whom I have referred several times—will be here to answer questions on 10 March. I shall be a little unfriendly and say that I am tempted to observe that I wish the hon. Gentleman would give me the name of his scriptwriter so that I can make sure that I never use him.

Building Research Establishment

Mr. Nick Raynsford: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the Government's handling of the privatisation of the Building Research Establishment.
I have written to you about this matter, Madam Speaker.
Over the past few weeks, it has become clear from a number of sources—including replies to parliamentary questions—that the two short-listed bidders to acquire the BRE were not competing fairly on a level playing field. This has clearly prejudiced the prospects of the external bidder and calls into question the validity of the Government's decision to offer the BRE for sale to the in-house bid team.
Even more serious in my view is the evidence that the House has been misled on this issue. In a reply on 18 February, the Minister stated that his Department had received no representations about the failure to maintain a level playing field between the two short-listed bidders. This is simply not correct. On 15 January this year, I wrote to the permanent secretary in the Department to express serious reservations about the way in which the BRE's privatisation was being handled and to highlight concerns that the level playing field between the different bidders had been undermined. The claim that the Department had received no representations on the issue is simply not believable.
Secondly, the Minister claimed in a reply on 13 February that no documentation relating to the future BRE group was made available to any bidder. The future BRE group was an internal review group set up by the BRE at the end of 1995 to examine a range of issues relating to the organisation's income, efficiency and expenditure, and its findings clearly would be of considerable interest and relevance to potential bidders. In a subsequent parliamentary answer on 24 February, the Minister revealed that five members of the future BRE group were also members of the in-house bid team, and so would have had access to this documentation. This once again indicates the absence of a proper level playing field between the two short-listed bidders. There is also a clear contradiction between the answers given by the Minister on 13 and 24 February.
I believe that this involves a serious failure to give full and straightforward answers to parliamentary questions. Accordingly, I wrote to the Minister on 25 February asking for an explanation and an early response. I also asked for an undertaking that, in the meantime, no action would be taken to progress the sale. This letter was faxed to the Minister's office early on Tuesday morning. To date, I have received no reply. I now learn that the Government are hoping to complete the sale of the BRE to the in-house bid team by the end of the month. That means that it is essential for this issue to be debated immediately if these matters are to be considered by the House before contracts are signed—hence my request for an early debate.
Madam Speaker, I believe that these issues fall four-square within the provisions of Standing Order No. 20. This is a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, and I hope that you will give my request sympathetic consideration.

Madam Speaker: I have listened most carefully to the hon. Gentleman and I have to give my decision without stating any reasons. I am afraid that I do not consider the matter that he has raised to be appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 20, and I cannot therefore submit his application to the House.

Point of Order

Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Normally I recognise that a slip of the tongue is a relatively trivial matter, and I would certainly not raise it on a point of order. But when, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), the Leader of the House used the words "new information" it was crucial not only to the then argument, but to something else. Since 1993, my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) and a number of the rest of us have endlessly asked parliamentary questions of a precise detailed nature on what has now come to be known as Gulf war syndrome. It is not as if this subject was neglected by the House of Commons—it was not. There was a cascade of questions on the matter. In these circumstances, simply to say that there is "new information" that justifies the behaviour of the Minister of State for the Armed Forces is not satisfactory. I would ask that you give the Leader of the House the opportunity either to correct himself or to say what he meant.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. With your permission, I would like to respond briefly in case there was any misunderstanding—although I am not sure that there should have been. As I understand it, Ministry of Defence Ministers were only told on 25 September last year that OP pesticides had been more widely used than previously stated. I believe that they then made that clear as soon as they could.

Welsh Affairs

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Coe.]

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. William Hague): The 12 months since we last debated Welsh affairs in the House have been 12 months of success for Wales—12 months of challenges accepted and met, and 12 months of increasing prosperity and opportunity for the people of Wales. In the past year, we have seen our policies and reforms continue to bear fruit and bring benefits. I want to mention some of our achievements and to set out how we intend to maintain the momentum to take a successful and prosperous Wales into the next century.
I have concentrated over the past two years on three themes above all—the economy, education and the environment. The three must be linked in people's minds and actions if we are to make sustained progress in a modern society. Taken together, they represent opportunity—the opportunity of learning, of gaining qualifications, of mastering a skill, of gaining a job, of continuity for communities, of a future for young people, and the opportunity to live in a healthy environment and to enjoy the variety of spectacular scenery that Wales has to offer.
Unemployment in Wales has fallen by more than 9,000 in the past three months alone, and last year we won inward investment promising 15,000 jobs: that is 15,000 opportunities for individuals, and more opportunities again for entrepreneurs and companies to capitalise on that success. Standards have risen in our schools, so that young people in Wales can be properly equipped to take those opportunities, and we are training more apprentices and technicians to take their places in this new industrial revolution.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: That is excellent news about the 15,000 new jobs, which possibly makes this a record year, but does the Secretary of State accept that most of those posts will not be filled until after the general election, and that most of the employers are well aware of Labour's 20-point lead in the opinion polls? That makes it absolutely clear that all those employers, both existing and new, have no fears about anything that an incoming Labour Government might do.

Mr. Hague: Most employers are far too wise to presume on the outcome of an election being determined by opinion polls, as the hon. Gentleman seems to do. If many of those employers were aware—as some of them are—of the many regulations imposed on businesses on the continent of Europe, they would have a different view on where to expand their activities.

Mr. Donald Anderson: The LG investment, as the Secretary of State knows, will generate the need for substantial additional housing, and there is a major question whether that will be clustered in one area, Coedkernew, or spread wider afield. The Secretary of State for the Environment has published a think piece on where people will live in England, because of the growing

number of households and other factors. Can the right hon. Gentleman see a case, given that our problems are similar, for a similar think piece in respect of Wales?

Mr. Hague: I do not necessarily accept what the hon. Gentleman said about there being a great need for new housing because of the LG development. In the main, I should like the benefits of the project to go to people living where they live today. I cannot prejudge any decision that I would make on alterations to structure plans, but that is my general approach, and I believe that it will command the support of hon. Members of all parties.

Mr. Paul Flynn: I am puzzled by one thing: the United Kingdom has won 78 Nobel prizes for science this century, and Korea has won none, so why are we spending large sums of money to buy scientific jobs from Korea?

Mr. Hague: The hon. Gentleman knows that the project will bring vast benefits to his constituency. The vast majority of the money that brings the jobs is coming from LG, from Korea, not from the United Kingdom. I think that it is right in some areas to give assistance to companies, wherever they come from—Korea or Wales, home-grown or overseas—to encourage jobs to go to those areas. The hon. Gentleman's constituency has been one of the principal beneficiaries of that policy, and he should not be in the business of criticising that.

Mr. Rod Richards: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Hague: Yes, but this will be a very long speech if I give way all the time.

Mr. Richards: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Does he understand the Labour party's proposals on employment? On the one hand, the right hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) says that a Labour Government would spend about £3 billion subsidising employers to employ approximately 250,000 people, on the basis that reducing employment costs increases the numbers employed; on the other, he wants to introduce a minimum wage, which would increase costs and, surely, reduce the number employed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is totally illogical?

Mr. Hague: Yes. My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. There is no question but that Labour's policies would reduce employment, and they would certainly reduce employment opportunities for the future in Wales. The minimum wage would damage those opportunities, as the deputy leader of the Labour party has acknowledged in the past, as would the adoption of the social chapter.
I briefly mentioned education and industry. We are working, in addition, to sustain rural communities and to maintain a living, working countryside, bringing together agriculture, industry and tourism in a way that preserves a way of life, a culture, and the countryside itself.
We have succeeded in all that, not by looking inward and believing that our economy or our environment begins and ends at the Welsh border, but because we are part of one of the strongest and most flexible economies


in Europe; because we look outward for investment and ideas; and because we are prepared to compete at an international level.
There is still the challenge of spreading opportunity and prosperity throughout Wales, and I shall outline in a moment some measures to achieve that; but before I go into detail on those and other matters, let me refer to one more piece of recent good news, one more opportunity for Wales.
When the European Council meets in Cardiff next year, we intend to make sure that it meets in an even more prosperous and dynamic Wales, a Wales that is fully part of a prosperous and dynamic United Kingdom with a strong, self-confident message about itself for the rest of Europe and a strong, clear voice in the decision-making processes of the United Kingdom, not a Wales distracted and weakened by a prolonged and bitter debate about yet another tier of government. I want not the devolution of despair but the devolution and extension of opportunity for more and more people in Wales.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Will the Secretary of State confirm that, if there is a referendum after the general election, with a real choice for the people of Wales, the Conservative party will not oppose it? If he opposes such a referendum, is it because he believes that the general election gives a mandate to an incoming Government to set up an assembly?

Mr. Hague: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I have said clearly that we would respect the outcome of a referendum and that people would be landed with the consequences of such a referendum for the foreseeable future. However, I have grave misgivings about the idea of a pre-legislative referendum. That is a misuse of referendums and creates a situation in which the Government of the day either say that they want the electorate to give approval before seeing the details or say subsequently to Parliament that a draft Bill has been approved in a referendum and Parliament must pass it whether it likes it or not. That is not easily combined with the parliamentary democracy that we cherish.
We are threatened with the misuse of a referendum by a Government with an overmighty attitude. If the disaster of a Labour Government were to happen, we would no doubt have to return to the subject. I intend that the Government of the United Kingdom after the general election will be one who will not go down that road of the ludicrous distraction of constitutional change but will continue to bring jobs and prosperity to Wales.
That prosperity is the subject to which I now want to return. Our overriding objective for the UK economy is to promote sustained economic growth and rising prosperity. The two cornerstones of our policies are permanently low inflation and sound public finances.
We have the fundamentals well in hand: inflation is well under control and stable—the best performance for nearly 50 years—interest rates remain low; public finance is under tight control; and the public sector borrowing requirement is forecast to fall further in the years to come. Independent observers, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, say that the UK economy is now more flexible, competitive and resistant to inflation.
Wales has benefited enormously from those policies. We have more than 300 overseas-owned companies operating out of almost 380 plants and employing more

than 75,000 people. Wales is undergoing a new industrial revolution, transformed from a country heavily dependent on traditional industries to a modern and diverse growing economy.
Let us consider some of the facts. Since 1982, manufacturing productivity in Wales has been above the UK average—9 per cent. above in 1994. Provisional figures for 1995 show that Wales has a sturdy 14.6 per cent. advantage over the rest of the UK.

Mr. Ted Rowlands: Given those figures, is it not all the more dismaying that Bluebird Toys decided to close its Merthyr plant? It had been part of the diversification process and had received fantastic assistance from the Welsh Office, local authorities and the Welsh Development Agency. Even at this twelfth hour, I wonder whether collectively we could persuade the company to continue to locate some of its production there, so that it does not become an import-only toy company.

Mr. Hague: I share the hon. Gentleman's disappointment about that recent news, which, I think, involves 88 jobs. I recently wrote to him about the matter. Both the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones), and I have written to the company in the past to make it clear that we stand ready to offer any assistance that we can give. That offer stands, and if there is any other way in which we can pursue the matter, I am ready to do so. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman acknowledges that, although we regret that news, there has been much other good news for employment in his constituency in recent months.
Since 1979, the number of manufacturing businesses in Wales has increased by about 46 per cent. Indigenous companies work alongside inward investors. Welsh steel making has improved beyond recognition to become the most efficient in Europe. The number of people in employment in Wales has risen over the past decade by 95,000. Manufacturing industry has for a long time been a particular success story in Wales. We are the only region of Great Britain—

Mr. Wigley: Country.

Mr. Hague: We are the only part, the only country, of Great Britain whose manufacturing employment has increased over the past decade. Unemployment in Wales continues to fall: it fell by 9,200 over the past three months. Long-term unemployment dropped by 8 per cent. in the year to January 1997.

Mr. Walter Sweeney: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in the Vale of Glamorgan since I was elected in 1992, there has been approximately £1.6 billion of inward investment and several hundred new jobs have been created? Would he care to comment on the implications for my constituents of the social chapter, a minimum wage and the other job-destroying measures proposed by the Opposition?

Mr. Hague: My hon. Friend rightly mentions his constituency, which has been one of the principal beneficiaries of the growth and success of home-grown companies, as well as of inward investors. It is an outstanding example of the growing success of Wales.


He is right: the adoption of a minimum wage and the social chapter would gravely inhibit employment opportunities in Wales. There is no question about that. Jacques Delors himself thought that our opt-out from the social chapter would make the United Kingdom a paradise for investment. That is exactly what it has done. Adoption of the social chapter would destroy that paradise.

Mr. Flynn: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hague: No, I shall make some progress. I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once.
Business surveys published today show that firms in Wales remain optimistic for the coming year. Domestic orders and output are strong, with firms expecting growth to continue. Prospects for employment are good, and strong growth in investment in plant and machinery is expected. Professional forecasters are bullish about the prospects for Wales. Cambridge Econometrics expects the Welsh economy to grow faster this year than that of the United Kingdom as a whole.
Yesterday's newspaper headline, that south-east Wales is the "Best place in the UK to get a job", would have been unimaginable a few years ago. It is a measure of the achievement of the Government and of countless businesses in transforming the prospects for Wales. If south-east Wales is the best place in Britain to get a job, it follows that it must be one of the best places in Europe to get a job. Now our ambition is that, in the next few years, the whole of Wales will be the best place in Europe to get a job. We know that there is more to do. We will continue to help to create jobs across a broad range of businesses. We want stronger services to complement manufacturing with even more financial services and research and technology-based businesses in Wales.
The Welsh Development Agency has made a significant contribution to the Welsh success story. It has met, and exceeded, its targets. Its activities assist economic growth and job creation throughout Wales. In the past year alone, it has played its part in attracting £2.5 billion of investment through 150 projects. I want the agency to build on its successes and to consolidate its achievements by ensuring that the benefits are spread throughout Wales.
In response to the challenge of attracting more investment to areas outside the more traditionally favoured south-east and north-east of Wales, for the coming financial year I shall require at least 50 per cent. of the jobs safeguarded or created by the agency to be outside the eastern M4 and A55 corridors. That is a major increase from the current 20 per cent. target, which relates solely to capital and inward investment programmes. The 50 per cent. target would relate to all the agency's programmes.
The Development Board for Rural Wales will similarly concentrate at least 50 per cent. of its programme expenditure on its western areas, demonstrating the commitment to job creation in those areas, where unemployment is, on average, higher than in south-east or north-east Wales. Of the 12,500 jobs, 8,000 should come from inward investment, of which at least 3,000 should be from new, overseas projects. With the inward investment jobs target, I shall be looking for the agency to secure at least £400 million in associated planned investment.
The land reclamation programme of the agency will continue. It is working on several large schemes; the reclamation of some 1,400 ha—nearly 3,500 acres—will be physically progressing on site. Over the next two years, the agency has given a commitment that it will complete the reclamation of schemes totalling 750 million ha, or 1,850 acres. The target of completing the reclamation of 200 ha during the coming financial year is the first phase of that two-year commitment.
The success of Wales in attracting inward investment and consistently achieving 10 to 20 per cent. of all inward investment brought to our shores is envied by many of our competitors. The competition is fierce and sophisticated; it comes from elsewhere in the United Kingdom, from the United States and from the Asia-Pacific region. To remain successful, we must stay sharp and react to the needs of today's multinationals, as we have with LG, Sony, Ford, Newport Wafer-Fab and a host of others.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hague: I shall be very generous and give way to the hon. Gentleman a second time.

Mr. Anderson: I congratulate the Secretary of State on his belated recognition of the growing imbalance between the more-favoured and less-favoured areas of Wales. If we are to build on his wish, we need resources. He knows of the WDA's complaint that, because of existing commitments, there is no headroom left to carry out the policies that he now favours. How will he deal with that?

Mr. Hague: We debated this matter in the House a couple of weeks ago. The WDA has many commitments, but that does not mean that its entire budget is committed. The hon. Gentleman knows that I increased this year, will increase again next year and plan to increase again the year after that, the amount of Government grant in aid that goes to the WDA. Some hon. Members have said that they would like to provide more resources for the WDA, but given that they have also said that they are committed to the total spending plans of the Welsh Office, they need to say where they would find the money and what reductions would be made to finance it—a subject to which I shall return.
Only this week, Ford announced another investment in Wales: £25 million will be spent at Swansea to make parts for the next generation of Escort cars. That is a demonstration of faith in the Welsh work force and secures the plant there for the immediate future. Today, there was an announcement by another long-standing investor in Wales: Hoya will spend more than £10 million at its Wrexham lens plant and more than double its work force of 100. I met the company president on a recent investment mission to Japan. The quality of the work force, and the company's positive experience in Wales, led to that expansion.
As Hoya and Ford have discovered, we offer a dedicated, reliable and flexible work force; good industrial relations; competitive overhead costs, made possible by low non-wage costs; good transportation links to markets in the United Kingdom and further afield; continued investment in quality infrastructure, such as the


new A465 link and our private finance initiative schemes including the A55 across Anglesey, which is now the highest priority in our roads programme; a positive approach by those of us involved in economic development; and a stable economy with low interest and inflation rates and good prospects for growth.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: The Secretary of State mentions an important issue in my constituency. He will know that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones), attended a meeting in Anglesey a few days ago to discuss the matter, and it was put to him that, under the programme, even under the private finance initiative scheme, there should be a much earlier start than autumn 1998. Will the right hon. Gentleman announce today that he is looking seriously at that proposal?

Mr. Hague: I shall certainly consider any means of bringing forward the project, although the process of ensuring that the PFI scheme can go ahead and that the right bidder has been selected will take some time. I fully intend, however, that that road will remain the highest priority in our roads programme and I certainly intend—and continue to believe strongly—that we shall meet the target date for completing the road that was set even before PFI was considered for it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reassure his constituents on that.
Wales is now in an enviable position and we have a golden opportunity. We must now rise to the challenge of making sure that as many as possible of the spin-off jobs from major investments go to Welsh people working in Welsh companies spread throughout Wales. That is the task ahead.

Mr. Wigley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hague: I should make a little progress, or other hon. Members will not have time to speak in the debate.
To rise to the challenge and take that opportunity, our young people must be better educated and more highly skilled than ever before.
In Wales, we have created an internationally renowned work force, responsive to change and with the initiative and skills to meet the demands of leading-edge and high-technology businesses. That is why we recently updated our framework for post-school training and education. A few weeks ago, I published a document entitled "People and Prosperity: Building on Success", which reports on what we have done to develop a competitive skills base and outlines the steps that we now need to take to build on that success. Those steps include opportunities for young people through high-quality national traineeships; increased funding for modern apprenticeships to allow another 4,300 young people to take part; doubling support for the adult technicians scheme; and getting demotivated young people back into education and training and on into jobs.
Earlier this week, the training and enterprise councils in Wales launched their own manufacturing skills plan for training to support the manufacturing industry that we have created. It is a vision for the next century and I commend them on their efforts and foresight.
The "Bright Future: Beating our Previous Best" programme is also at the heart of our efforts to promote improved school performance in Wales and it is working.

It aims for continuing improvement. Everyone concerned with education knows that schools that rest on their laurels or are content with low expectations and poor results are selling pupils short. Schools throughout Wales are beginning to set themselves targets for improving performance. I have set more targets for education in the new "Bright Future" document. The targets that I am setting are ambitious and testing. I want everyone with an interest in education in Wales to take the opportunity to comment on them, and help shape them.
We are not only improving standards but increasing parental choice, two aims that come together in the popular schools initiative, which is providing £26 million to expand successful, high-achieving schools that are attracting more pupils than they can physically accommodate. In total, 24 schools and the work that we have funded will create an extra 2,000 pupil places. Two thousand more families will be able to send their children to their first-choice school as a result.
Our policy of extending choice also applies to the education of four-year-olds though the nursery vouchers scheme. Some 30,000 out of 35,000 have now registered. The scheme is giving parents a real choice in the education that they want for their four-year-olds. Opposition Members have frequently told us that nursery provision in Wales was so good that the scheme was not needed. Why, then, are we seeing such a sudden, marked improvement in provision? Flintshire, Wrexham and Denbighshire are all moving from quarter-time provision to at least half-time provision for all four-year-olds from April. Anglesey and Conwy also propose statutory notices, which will allow admission of four-year-olds earlier and will therefore offer all four-year-olds a full three-terms provision. Gwynedd has also announced its intention to expand nursery provision for four-year-olds from April, and for three-year-olds from September. If nursery provision was so good before, how come all those improvements are taking place now that the nursery vouchers scheme has been introduced? They are not the results of a failing, unwanted, unneeded scheme, as it has been described. They are the results of another measure to increase choice and opportunity, to which Opposition Members have been blindly opposed.
Our educational reforms are important for their own sake, but they are also part of our strategy for creating a modern and prosperous economy in Wales. Sometimes, people fear that our economic success will be bought only at a high cost to our environment. I take the opposite view. The countries with the worst environmental records in Europe were those bankrupt economies of the eastern bloc. Only healthy, prosperous economies can protect their environment, and we in Wales are demonstrating that economic progress and respect for nature can go hand in hand.
We have been able to fund the largest land reclamation programme in Europe, and I recently presented certificates recognising respect for the environment to companies ranging from National Power at Aberthaw to Kyushu Matsushita at Newport, and many others are working toward or achieving those high standards.
We have launched a business and environment campaign, making companies more aware of the impact of their operations on the environment. We have increased the funding of the Countryside Council for Wales for the


second successive year, established a Wales biodiversity group, and launched the Environmental Education Council for Wales.
Those measures add up to a coherent and wide-ranging package to protect and enhance the Welsh environment. We already have a good record on improving the quality of our air and water. Some 98 per cent. of rivers in Wales are of good or fair quality. Bathing waters around Wales have never been cleaner, with results for 1996 showing a 93 per cent. compliance with European standards, compared with less than 50 per cent. in 1986 when testing first began.
Last year, I was involved in the launch of the green sea initiative. That is unique to Wales and involves Dwr Cymru—Welsh Water—the Wales tourist board and many others working together toward the ambitious aim of achieving 50 blue flags on the Welsh coastline by 2000. That will give Wales the edge in terms of both its coastal environment and its ability to attract tourists. Next week, I shall launch the Welsh Coastal Forum, to bring together all those involved in caring for the coastline and our coastal waters.

Mr. Alan W. Williams: The Secretary of State will remember that it is almost exactly 12 months since the Sea Empress disaster, when 70,000 tonnes of oil spilled mainly on to the Pembrokeshire coast, but also affected other parts of the south Wales coast. The Government refused to hold a public inquiry, but allowed the Department of Transport to hold its own internal inquiry. As the Secretary of State knows, that has not yet reported. Will he have a word with his colleagues in the Department of Transport? The people of Pembrokeshire and of Wales should see that report before the general election and before the Government run away from the problem.

Mr. Hague: That inquiry is being conducted by the marine accidents investigation branch, not by the Department of Transport as an internal inquiry. I understand that the report will be published shortly, and then the House can look at it.
As the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) said, this month marked the first anniversary of the Sea Empress incident. One year on from the incident, we can look back on a successful clean-up operation, which, at its peak, involved more than 1,000 people from different organisations. That effort enabled all the main tourist beaches to be cleaned within eight weeks, culminating in Tenby north beach winning a blue flag award during the summer.
We also set up the Sea Empress environmental evaluation committee, to investigate the environmental impact of the oil spill, including consideration of clean-up techniques. Nearly £2 million of Government funds—half of it from the Welsh Office—has been made available for the costs of the programme of works identified in the committee's initial report. Its final report is due in the autumn. We shall learn a lot about how to help nature fight back from such blows and we shall spread the results of our research and monitoring as widely as possible.
It is almost a year since I published "A Working Countryside for Wales". It represented the most comprehensive review ever undertaken of the

Government policies affecting rural Wales. In setting out a detailed vision and a framework for sustainable development, the White Paper has pointed the way for the future by balancing sound economic development against the protection of Wales' rich environment. It represents another opportunity—the opportunity of living in a healthy, working countryside, with jobs for young people who can sustain and develop their own communities.
I shall publish a review of the White Paper next month, but I can tell the House now that 63 of the 94 commitments have already been met, including the development of a food strategy for Wales; the launch of the DBRW's market towns initiative; the review of the various agri-environmental schemes, including Tir Cymen; support for communities; the creation of new employment opportunities; and measures to protect the environment. More are in the pipeline.
Farming plays an important role in the Welsh rural economy. In the past year, all three main sectors—dairy, sheep and beef—have been affected in some way by the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis. The Government have responded to the crisis by committing support to maintain the structure of the industry in the UK. In addition, more than 150,000 Welsh animals have been slaughtered under the over-30-months scheme and nearly 90,000 Welsh calves have gone through the calf processing scheme.
There should be no doubt about the Government's commitment to the livestock industry in Wales. We recognised the need to bolster confidence in hill cattle farming in the less-favoured areas by announcing last year that the Budget would ensure that an extra £60 million was paid to UK hill livestock compensatory allowance cattle claimants in 1997. In addition, sheep farmers' incomes receive a considerable boost from annual payments of sheep annual premium amounting to £138 million. Those measures have supported the industry in Wales through a very difficult period. Consumer confidence is now returning; we all know that British beef—including Welsh beef—is safe to eat.
A major part of the Welsh Office budget is devoted to health, and here too we are working hard to improve services and standards throughout Wales. We are committed to increasing health spending in Wales each year over and above inflation for the life of the next Parliament. The Labour party has been extremely shy of stating its intentions in that respect. We want to know whether Labour Front Benchers will match my commitment today.
In the coming year, spending on capital schemes for the national health service in Wales will take the level of capital investment to more than £2 billion since 1979. This year, Wales' second cardiac centre will open, providing patients in west Wales with access to a local facility of high quality. At Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, after so many years, work will begin on the cancer treatment centre that will be the centrepiece of a comprehensive cancer service in north Wales. Only last week, I announced a further £1 million in support of recommendations from an expert group to improve cancer services throughout Wales. A number of capital schemes for Cardiff are also going ahead. Spending per head has increased by 89 per cent. in real terms since 1979.
All health authorities in Wales have had increases in spending this year. It falls to them to determine their priorities within their budget. However, I am aware that


the consultation document circulated by Dyfed Powys health authority has caused widespread concern and controversy, especially in relation to community hospitals. Any significant change in health services in Dyfed Powys, as elsewhere, that could not be agreed locally would have to come to me for decision. In considering any proposal, I would have strong regard to local views and local health needs. I want to make it clear that I am convinced of the important role played by community hospitals—especially between the primary and secondary care sectors—and would wish to see such hospitals retain their role in delivering NHS care.

Mr. Alex Carlile: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his clear rebuke of the outrageous conduct of the chairman of Dyfed Powys health authority, who announced on 23 December that eight community hospitals in Dyfed and Powys would close, without it being her responsibility to close them and without even knowing which hospitals she was talking about. Will he now confirm that rebuke by sacking the chairman of the Dyfed Powys health authority at once?

Mr. Hague: I am not delivering a rebuke of any individual. Health authorities are entitled to consult on future actions and I am making clear the approach that I will take on the matter.
Local views are important in the health service, as they are in local government. I see a strong and continuing role for local government in Wales and have transferred additional powers to local authorities in the past year. I have provided for the coming year an increase of £64 million in central Government support for local government—an increase that is in line with inflation. Local authorities should be able to manage their resources within that increase, which is the limit of what is affordable.
Opposition Members have complained about the settlement—in fact, the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is muttering about it at the moment—but they invariably refuse to say from where they would obtain extra money. They describe the local government settlement as "inadequate", but they have also made it clear that a two-year commitment to stick to our spending plans in total applies across the board, and therefore to Wales. They have yet to say how they would finance higher spending by councils within a fixed total, unless it is by sharp rises in council tax or reductions in spending elsewhere.
The Opposition have also said in the House that the budget of the Welsh Development Agency will not be sufficient, but how is a higher WDA budget to be financed out of a fixed total? In addition, there would be their Welsh Assembly to pay for—many millions of pounds to be spent on the most expensive roomful of hot air in the history of Wales. How would that be financed out of a fixed total, let alone a fixed total that already assumes continuing major reductions in the running costs of the Welsh Office and its non-departmental public bodies?
The fact is that the Opposition are trying to get away with a great illusion—a con trick. The problem facing them is that the form of words that they have adopted to please the City cannot be reconciled with the words they use to please every pressure group or authority that knocks on their door. It is time they answered the

questions of how and from where they would finance the additional expenditure for which they continually call. I am sure that they will try their level best to answer those questions in the debate.
Wales is doing well: it is experiencing rising prosperity, growing employment, improved infrastructure and higher standards of education. Our priority for the future is to continue that record; the Opposition's priority for the future is to blunder into constitutional chaos. I have no doubts about which approach will bring the greatest benefits to the people of Wales.

Mr. Win Griffiths: This afternoon, we have witnessed an amusing presentation that faltered between the comic and the rose-tinted spectacles. I should apologise on behalf of the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), who is on his way to the Labour party Wales conference in Llandudno, which opens tomorrow and is the prelude to Labour Government in Wales. I also apologise for the absence of all the other Labour Members of Parliament who wished to be present at the moment of victory—of which we shall hear later today—in Wirral, South, which is conveniently placed for a short trip across to Llandudno for the conference the following day. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly is not in Wirral, but on his way to Llandudno.

Sir Wyn Roberts: I wish to point out that it does not take three days to get to Llandudno—it takes three hours.

Mr. Griffiths: The roads of this country are so clogged up with traffic and in such a state of disrepair that one would be lucky to get from London to Llandudno in five hours, let alone three. If the right hon. Gentleman can get there in three hours, he must be breaking the speed limit most of the way.
Before speaking about the broader issues relating to Wales at the end of the 20th century, I want to say a few words specifically about the Sea Empress disaster. That event is no longer fresh in our minds, but we should remind ourselves of the scale of the pollution—the thousands of sea birds that were killed along with the damage caused to other marine life; the continuing ban on some sea food harvest; the damage to about 200 km of coastline; the increase in physical and psychological illness among people living in the affected coastal area; and the trauma caused to the pilots and to all those involved in the rescue operation.
Having reminded the House of the disaster, I want to ask the Secretary of State, who also referred to it, several questions. What involvement has he had in developments relating to the clean-up and investigation of the disaster? What guarantees can he give that a similar disaster will not happen in the future? Has he discussed with the Secretary of State for Transport and the Environment Agency the possibility of prosecuting the polluters? Is he now satisfied that the appropriate back-up services—suitably powered tugs and so on—are in place to cope with and ensure a more satisfactory outcome from a similar disaster, if we were so unfortunate as to suffer another?
Lastly, I repeat a question that the Secretary of State has been asked several times: why are the Government delaying the publication of the final report on the Sea


Empress disaster? Surely the Secretary of State must be aware that, whatever criticisms it may contain of the conduct of the Government and their agencies, it is hardly worth keeping them from the public to protect the prospects of Conservative candidates in Pembrokeshire in the general election, as the latter are doomed to failure anyway.
Will the Secretary of State commit himself now to ensuring that the Secretary of State for Transport publishes the report before the end of March? Obviously the Secretary of State does not wish to intervene now; he may want to consider the matter and give some direction to the Minister for the wind-up speech.
Like the Secretary of State, I welcome all the good news that we have had this year—the LG investment, the continuing expansion of Sony, the additional investment in Ford, and today's announcement that £203 million of European regional aid is coming to Wales.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) said, surely the most significant aspect of that news is that those companies are coming to Wales knowing that in all likelihood there will be a Labour Government, and they are well prepared to support that Labour Government by investing in Wales. I draw a contrast between the attitude of those companies and the statements by the leaders of Unilever, British Aerospace and many other British companies, who are already implementing the social chapter and find no problem with it but are disturbed about the way in which the Euro-sceptics are running amok in the Conservative party and threatening to pull the United Kingdom out of Europe—or at least to make it Tory party policy to do so.
We want to welcome those good news announcements, but how do they fit into the pattern of Welsh economic performance under Tory tutelage? They are oases, places of beauty and hope, in a landscape that is still too hostile for the green shoots of growth and prosperity to flourish.
The recently published "Regional Trends" report reveals that Wales has the lowest income per household of any region in the United Kingdom. The Welsh Office publication of June 1996, "Meeting the Challenge—the Competitiveness of Wales," said:
Welsh GDP per head has consistently been the lowest of any region in Great Britain.
The most recent "Economic Trends" shows that in 1995, Welsh gross domestic product decreased in relation to the UK average. In 1994, it was 84 per cent. of the UK average. In 1995 it dropped to 83.3 per cent. Those are hardly the signs of a growing and flourishing economy.
A Welsh Office publication said:
A smaller proportion of the working population (both males and females) in Wales is economically active than in other Great British regions.
We are told that
In Wales in 1993 and 1994 business Research and Development was roughly 0.5% of GDP compared to I.4%"—
nearly three times as much—
for the UK as a whole.
Wales is an economic region of high unemployment. Of a total of 96,400 unemployed, 31,000 are long-term unemployed, 28,000 are young unemployed and of those 5,500 are long-term young unemployed. There are 61,000

fewer jobs in Wales than there were in June 1979 and 133,000 fewer men are in full-time jobs than in June 1979. Unemployment in Wales is costing the taxpayer more than £800 million a year. That is the true picture: high unemployment, low pay on average, and a GDP at best stagnant, at worst declining. Those are the characteristics of the Welsh economy.
Average earnings for Welsh men working full time are £331.40 a week—the second lowest figure in the United Kingdom. Only Northern Ireland's figure, at 50p a week less, is lower. Greater London is £170 a week ahead.
In 1979, we were near the top of the regional pay league; we are now firmly at the bottom. In 1979, men's average earnings in Wales were 96.2 per cent. of the Great Britain average; in 1995, they had dropped to 88.4 per cent. In 1979, women's weekly earnings in Wales were 97.4 per cent. of the British average; in 1995 they had dropped, like the Welsh men's earnings, to 88.4 per cent.
During that period, men's average weekly earnings in Wales have increased by 29 per cent. in real terms, but the Great Britain increase is 41 per cent. Women's average earnings have increased by 48 per cent., but in Great Britain as a whole the figure is 63 per cent. We are lagging behind; we have not been sharing the growth in income.
The Welsh Development Agency corporate plan records that Welsh living standards are now 76 per cent. of the UK average. Despite all the recent welcome announcements, investment is growing more slowly in the current recovery than in any other this century, and we invest less as a proportion of our national income than any European country.
Our investment record is feeble. Germany invests 60 per cent. more than the UK as a share of national income, Hong Kong 92 per cent. more, Singapore 128 per cent. more. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that manufacturing productivity is 77 per cent. higher in the United States, 44 per cent. higher in the Netherlands, 37 per cent. higher in Germany and 26 per cent. higher in France than in the UK. The list of countries that are out-performing us is almost endless.
Given the continuing under-performance of the Welsh economy, why is the Secretary of State seeking to cut the WDA budget in 1998–99 by about £8 million? Why is he directing it, as I understand it, to move out of urban, rural, environmental and business services for home-grown companies—the very companies that feel that they do not receive the same attention and support as major inward investors? Who will take over that crucial support for indigenous companies if it is moved from the WDA, as I understand the Secretary of State intends?
What consultation has the Secretary of State undertaken with the WDA and businesses in Wales before introducing that surreptitious shift of policy? Is he intent on turning the WDA into an inward investment agency only? Home-grown companies deserve an answer, as it would appear that the Secretary of State is turning them into the second-class citizens of the Welsh economy.

Mr. Hague: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about and I am not sure whether anyone else in the building knows what he is talking about. There are no plans for the WDA to do as he has described. It is very important to support indigenous home-grown companies


as well as inward investors. I have issued no instruction or request to the Welsh Development Agency that it change its approach to that in any way.

Mr. Griffiths: So the Secretary of State is confirming that the WDA will not move out of urban, rural, environmental and business services to companies in Wales? I understand that some strategic directions are being given to the WDA—perhaps they are circulating internally—but I am pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that that will not happen.
The rural economy is not in good shape, either. It has been blighted by the continuing saga of the Government's incompetence on a grand scale in the handling of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Ever since repudiating, about 10 years ago, the warnings of my hon. Friends the Members for South Shields (Dr. Clark) and for Caerphilly about BSE, the Government have always appeared determined to act when it is too late. That indecision has cost the Welsh taxpayer about £140 million, and Welsh beef and dairy farmers have lost millions of pounds in lost cattle sales, even taking into account the various amounts of compensation paid by the Government.
It has been estimated that, if the export ban continues, up to 3,000 jobs could be lost in the rural economy. On top of that, fears remain about the availability of licensed abattoirs and animal carcase incinerators to deal with the slaughtered cattle. What tests have been done to establish the ability of incinerators to destroy BSE prions, and what checks are made to ensure that the planning consents for those incinerators are not being breached?
Whether in rural or industrial areas, the Tory housing record leaves much to be desired. Over the past three years, local government housing renovation grants and housing capital provision have been cut by 24 per cent. in real terms. The Secretary of State may remember that, when he announced his Welsh Office budget for 1996–97, he allocated £85.1 million to Tai Cymru, from which he said that he expected Tai Cymru to finance about 3,000 housing starts in that year. Miraculously, last December, when the right hon. Gentleman allocated £25 million less to Tai Cymru than he had in the previous year, he said that he still expected it to make around 3,000 housing starts.
How does the Secretary of State expect to maintain housing starts when he has cut Tai Cymru's budget by nearly 30 per cent.? No wonder homelessness in Wales has increased by 68 per cent. in the last decade, with over 9,000 families accepted as homeless in 1995. No wonder the number of public housing starts has constantly fallen below Tai Cymru's preferred target of 4,000 a year. Indeed, in some areas the number has been 25 per cent. below that target.
The Government are ignoring the crisis in our education service. Despite recent improvements, far too many of their policies have resulted in the maintenance of a stubbornly long tail of under-achievement in our schools, and in low expectations among our pupils. The Government are ignoring the imminent shortage of engineers in south-east Wales—a problem that is already acute but which, when LG comes on line, will be brutal, with a knock-on effect throughout Wales. At present Britain is 42nd in the world skills league, and Wales, within Britain, is near the bottom of the table.
Only 58 per cent. of our 17-year-olds remain in full-time education, whereas the figure is 77 per cent. in the United States, 87 per cent. in France, 90 per

cent. in Japan and 93 per cent. in Germany. We are nowhere near reaching the national targets on training, set—at least in part—with business. The target of two A-levels or their vocational equivalent, advanced GNVQ or NVQ level 3, is 60 per cent; in Wales we manage 44 per cent., less than the British average and miles behind France and Germany, which manage 58 per cent. and 63 per cent. respectively.
In 1996, 32 per cent. of students in Wales achieved grades A, B or C in maths, science and English or Welsh. The Welsh Office target of 50 per cent. will be very difficult to meet when the Government are cutting, in real terms, the resources available to schools through the local government settlement. Although the settlement was roughly in line with inflation, once the additional amount for the police and care in the community was taken out, the amount that local government could spend on its other services was about 1 per cent. below the level of inflation, and we are now seeing cuts across the board in virtually every local education authority.
At all stages of education and training, the Government are cutting resources because of their poor management of the economy. The 1990s in particular have been characterised by inadequate and unfair funding, which has led to cuts in teaching and support staff, class size and pupil-teacher ratio increases, the overstretching of special education support services to the point of breakdown and a deterioration in the condition of school buildings to the point at which some are health and safety hazards. The Minister shakes his head, but his chief inspector's own report comments on the bad state of many buildings.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Jonathan Evans): Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us whether, on the basis of his researches, he is at least prepared to accept that all the information from the inspectorate suggests that the gap between the performance of Welsh students and that of English students has narrowed considerably during the life of the present Government. Perhaps he will also confirm that, when his party was last in office, the gap widened.

Mr. Griffiths: It is certainly true that the chief inspector has been very effective in ensuring that schools in Wales are given the advice, guidance and support they need in order to improve, but all that has been achieved very much despite, rather than because of, what the Government are doing. We need only speak to a cross-section of teachers in Wales to discover that that is their view.
Is it not strange that the enterprise centre of Europe—that, we are told, is what Britain is—seems to have been so badly managed by Conservative Members that the national debt has doubled since 1990?

Mr. Richards: A moment ago, the hon. Gentleman said that the local government settlement in Wales was too low, and that services had been cut. Will he tell us how much higher the settlement should be in the next fiscal year—1997–98—to become fairer?

Mr. Griffiths: When we have the opportunity to open the books in the Welsh Office, the right hon. Gentleman will be able to study, from his armchair—I do not know whether he still has his public house in Ystradgynlais—


exactly how we are going to improve the position for local government and other sectors in Wales, because of our determination to use the money that is available much more effectively.
What is the Government's record? In primary schools in the 1990s, there have been unrelenting increases in the number of children taught in classes of over 30. At the last count, at least 74,000 children—25 per cent. of primary school pupils in Wales—were being taught in such classes. That is an increase of at least 16,000 since the last election.
In further and higher education, the good news of expanding numbers has been soured by reductions in spending per student. In 1997–98, the Further Education Funding Council for Wales and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales will have their budgets cut by £1 million and £6 million respectively. Perhaps it is no surprise that nine of the 26 FE colleges are in deficit this year, and that it is predicted that 15 will be in deficit the year after next. Welsh higher education is also reporting cuts in critical areas. In Swansea, Cardiff, Newport and the university of Glamorgan, engineering and science courses are being dropped, at the very time when efforts should be made to encourage more participation to meet the need for skilled engineers and technicians when the LG investment in Newport comes on stream.
Again, the good news about the expansion of modern apprenticeships and the increase in the numbers of technicians is tempered by reductions that have been made in the Welsh Office's employment and training budget during the lifetime of the present Government, from £152 million in 1992 to £136 million in April this year. The sad fact is that, despite some progress in the past four years, Wales has a smaller share of 17 and 18-year-olds in full-time education than any other OEDC country except Turkey.
It is, perhaps, even sadder that, according to recent studies commissioned by the South and Mid Glamorgan training and enterprise councils, between 15 per cent. and 25 per cent. of school leavers within two years of leaving school have spent much of their time out of education, training or work of any kind—the so-called status zero. The Prime Minister himself said that our education system was failing 80 per cent. of our pupils; yet, after 18 years of Tory rule, the historic long tail of failure has hardly begun to be tackled.
By recognising the realities of Tory failure, we are not selling Wales short but facing the challenge of being prepared to tackle the unresolved problems of the Government's rule. The decline must be halted, and the key will be the extent to which the prospective Labour Government can forge new partnerships in Wales. We will place immense importance on the transition from the Welsh Office to the Welsh Assembly, where we can have a rational, national debate about the making of policy, which does not happen under the Government, where priorities chop and change at the behest of the Secretary of State with little or no debate.
One Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt), was committed to partnership with Europe. Another, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), wanted to avoid it like the plague. The present Secretary of State just follows the

twists and turns of the Prime Minister. The current Secretary of State placed great importance on the role of the Countryside Council for Wales, while his predecessor sought to diminish it. There is no debate about these issues. They depend on the whim of the Secretary of State of the day.
All the historically strong European economies have strong regional institutions. Amazingly, the Secretary of State extols the virtue of Wales's links with Baden-Wurttemburg, Catalonia, Lombardy and Rhone-Alpes without seeing the strength of their regional government as an essential part of their economic success.

Mr. Wigley: I have been listening with interest to the way in which the hon. Gentleman is developing the argument with regard to the role that the Assembly will play, particularly in education. If there is an incoming Conservative Government in five years' time, and if they want to pass legislation to extend nursery vouchers to affect primary or even secondary education, how will the Assembly proposed by Labour deal with that? The Scottish Parliament will have law-making powers, whereas the Assembly that Labour proposes for Wales will not, and it will have to live with legislation passed by right-wing Tory Governments.

Mr. Griffiths: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman takes such a dismal view of the future. We feel that there is no need to be troubled by those issues. We look forward to a future in which a Welsh Assembly can act as a democratic dynamo, inspiring participants from all the social partners and all parts of Wales to develop with Assembly Members and the Welsh civil service national strategies for jobs and wealth.
The Secretary of State is also developing the social partner concept—

Mr. Hague: Gibberish.

Mr. Griffiths: The Secretary of State calls it gibberish, but I note that on the Welsh Development Agency board are people who represent local government, trade unions and business in Wales. Perhaps he does not understand what the term "social partners" means.
We look to the sub-regional committees of the Assembly to focus on their parts of Wales and bring together the development agencies, higher and further education institutions, TECs, local authorities and representatives of local trade and industry to pursue commonly agreed objectives for sustainable economic development.

Mr. Richards: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Griffiths: No. I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once, and I want to complete my speech to allow others to speak.
An essential part of the process will be the regional education and training forum, bringing together Welsh Office and Welsh Assembly Members and officials, LEAs, higher and further education institutions, TECs, development agencies and employers to raise educational and skill standards, which are so necessary in any successful, advanced, modern economy.
We need a highly trained and adaptable work force to get the right inward investment and to develop our home-grown companies to broaden the base of our economy. Our emphasis on the need for a learning society in Wales in which the knowledge and skills of all people are extended in a process of lifelong education cannot be overstated. We must offer education opportunities for all people. Ours is a commitment to a universal high-quality education. We believe that every child deserves to go to a successful school.
As we approach he new millennium, we want a Wales in which well educated citizens contribute to a healthy and wealthy economy that offers continuing opportunities for self-fulfilment to all, not just the privileged few. Educational excellence is Labour's aspiration for the people of Wales in the 21st century. I look forward next year to Labour's aspirations being implemented by a Government headed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), whose declared priority is "education, education, education".

ROYAL ASSENT

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Horserace Totaliser Board Act 1997
Land Registration Act 1997
Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) (Amendment) Act 1997
Telecommunications (Fraud) Act 1997
Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997
Local Government (Gaelic Names) (Scotland) Act 1997
Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997
Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997
Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997
Planning (Hazardous Substances) (Scotland) Act 1997
Planning (Consequential Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1997
Civil Procedure Act 1997
United Nations Personnel Act 1997
National Heritage Act 1997

Welsh Affairs

Question again proposed, That this House do now adjourn.

Sir Wyn Roberts: I realise that some hon. Members may greet my announcement that this will be positively my last appearance in the annual debate on Welsh affairs with a polite sigh of relief. After 27 years' participation one way or another, even my feelings are mixed. I prefer beginnings to endings.
This has traditionally been a day for state-of-the-nation speeches from the Front Benches and state-of-the-constituency speeches from the Back Benches. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) is not with us. I mean no disrespect, of course, to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), who took his place. I am consoled by the fact that the hon. Member for Caerphilly is in Llandudno, in my constituency, where he will undoubtedly see the record investment that has taken place there over the past 18 years. He will see it in the glorious vistas of the A55 and in that great triumph of engineering the Conwy tunnel, and in its sister tunnels at Penmaenmawr and Penmaen-bach. He will also see it in the development of Llandudno hospital, which the Liberals have been threatening with closure for the past 30-odd years.
All in all, year on year, the official record of these debates is an essential part of the background to the history of Wales and its people in our time. I hope that these debates will continue.
I shall dip only briefly into the past to set the present and future in perspective, but it is worth reminding ourselves just how heavily dependent we were for employment in Wales on coal and steel, and how both sides of the House came to realise that those industries could not be sustained indefinitely with subsidies from the taxpayer. It will interest hon. Members to know that, as late as 1978–79, the National Coal Board received the equivalent of £1.2 billion in subsidies, and British Steel £2.1 billion at today's prices. There was a string of pit closures in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and a slimdown in the steel industry. At the same time, considerable efforts were made, through substantial investment, to modernise those industries and make them economically viable.
Those efforts were more successful in the steel industry, probably because we started from a better base. There was no denying the fall in demand for coal, and the severity of competition in steel. Thousands of jobs were lost, and we needed new industries. They came as inward investment from abroad: Sony in 1972 and Ford in 1976. I pay tribute to our predecessors on both sides of the House who had to face up to those difficult problems and take some tough and painful decisions.
Some of us had the pleasure of hearing Lord Callaghan at lunchtime. When he represented Cardiff, South he had to endure the closure of East Moors steelworks in his constituency. Similarly, Michael Foot had to face the prospect of the end of steelmaking in his constituency of Ebbw Vale. I must commend the foresight of those, including the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris), who anticipated the devastating


consequences of those and other closures on our economy, and took steps to ameliorate the effects by establishing the means to attract and develop new industry.
Hon. Members will know that, from 1979, my noble and spirited Friend Lord Crickhowell, then the Secretary of State, led mission after mission to North America and Japan, at some cost to his health, as did his successors. As a result, some 300 overseas companies have established 380 plants and provided 75,000 jobs in Wales. I am glad to say that I played some part in that. I visited Japan and met the president of Hoya: I am still wearing the Hoya lenses that I acquired before I met him. I also visited North America and Europe to procure jobs for Wales. I know from experience how important an attraction to foreign companies was the unrivalled quality of the Welsh work force and its astonishing flexibility. The co-operative, welcoming attitude of the local authorities was also very much to the fore. All those people deserve the highest praise for their patience, and their readiness to embrace new developments.
Local indigenous companies were not ignored. Laura Ashley began as a kitchen industry: that is how the great lady herself described it. It was a local company and grew to employ hundreds of people in mid and north Wales; and it still does. Control Techniques and other companies also achieved international stature.
Someone said that history is the biography of great men—and, I am sure, women. Wales has been fortunate in having people who have dedicated themselves with a will to tackling its problems, including my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State. My dearest wish is that that tradition will continue.
I must also draw attention to the extensive support that Wales has received from the rest of the United Kingdom in its transition to a more diversified economy. It was not just money that came to us; there was more to it than that. There was good will towards us; a will that we should succeed in Wales. Without that assistance from the rest of the United Kingdom at home and abroad, the change that we have witnessed would hardly have been possible.
We still require that assistance to make further advances, and to raise the standard of living of our people in Wales. The standard needs raising, as is shown by the statistical data to which the hon. Member for Bridgend referred. We all know that, but it stands to reason that we should not put support from the United Kingdom at risk. If we do, we put the future prosperity of the people of Wales in peril.
We are all agreed—Conservative Members at least—that we need more and better jobs in Wales, and that that is the way to raise wage levels and improve conditions. We must pursue present policies vigorously and relentlessly, as my right hon. Friend is doing. We realise that circumstances may change, that there may be fewer potential inward investors about and that competition for their investment may become keener. We have known that situation in the past. We may have to change tack and provide more forceful encouragement to indigenous businesses in the westernmost parts of Wales, but our main thrust is right: jobs, more jobs, better jobs. That must be our top priority. I want to see Wales vie with the very best and most prosperous regions in the United Kingdom.
The Opposition pay lip service to that kind of thinking, but in reality their major priority is purely political: to make constitutional changes and to establish a Welsh Assembly. That is already taking a great deal of their time and energy. If Labour wins the election—which I do not think it will—it will take up even more time. There will be the referendum campaign followed by a protracted legislative process. What will happen to the Welsh economy while all that diversionary activity is going on? There will be little progress, if any, because everyone will be distracted from the main aim of improving economic conditions in Wales.
I listened to the hon. Member for Bridgend, but he had nothing to offer us. He talked about partnerships, about chatting up people across Wales and about asking for more money, but he did not tell us where he would get it from or say what he would do as a result of that talking-shop activity in Wales. It is not just him: I do not want to blame him unduly. If—it is a very big if—a few years from now, the 60 assemblymen are comfortably seated in Cardiff, Caerphilly or perhaps Llandudno, sorting out their responsibilities for the quangos, how much better off will the people of Wales be as a consequence? Not a penny piece.
There will be. We already know of the 20 questions that the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) has put to the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair). They contain an implicit threat. We can be sure that confusion will reign, and confusion is not a prescription for progress.
I warn Labour Members that their assembly proposals are a recipe for divisiveness. Wales is easily divided: Cardiff versus the valleys, north versus south. Furthermore, it is a recipe for unfairness. One thing that can be said of my right hon. Friend and his predecessors in the Welsh Office is that they have always dealt fairly and equitably with every part of Wales and with all the people of Wales. I am not sure that that would happen necessarily under an assembly.
An added problem is that an assembly would isolate Wales from the rest of the United Kingdom and, possibly, from the world, which would be dangerous because our national needs in Wales will not be met if we are isolated. They would be ignored, so I have serious misgivings about the future that the Opposition hold out to us, and I assure them that those misgivings are shared by many people in Wales—as they were almost 20 years ago.
I may be accused of being somewhat servile—that is the worst that has been thrown at me. My reply is that at least I recognise a gift horse when I look it in the mouth. I know where power lies. Opposition Members should not forget that Nye Bevan set out on that search and he ended up here. It is here in Westminster and in Whitehall that power lies, and this is where it will remain.
Members of Plaid Cymru frequently refer to the recent progress made by the Republic of Ireland with assistance from Europe—which I welcome—but they tend to forget that the Republic has taken a long time to reach its present position, that it still has 11 per cent. unemployment, and that 43 per cent. of its population is under 25. A fifth of our population are pensioners, so the situation is different and, of course, the Republic does not have the generous backing that we in Wales receive from the UK. The Irish receive strong support from Europe, but for how long if Europe is enlarged?
Hon. Members will know my tradition—the tradition of the manse—so it is not without reason that I say that, without vision, the people perish. Conservative Members have long cherished the vision of a more prosperous Wales, and we are determined to harness people's energies to realise that vision. I regret to say that the Opposition only pretend to share that vision. It seems to be alien to their thinking. It is certainly not at the core of anything that we have heard this afternoon. The core of their vision for Wales is the consolidation of their party's political power in Wales, so I am inclined to share Nye Bevan's nightmare of people starving in front of their television sets. That seems a distinct possibility as one listens to the offbeat plans and priorities, and the discordant, irresponsible separatist voices in the wings.
In the past 18 years, we have made considerable progress in building new hospitals, laying new roads and improving education and training. Our further and higher education colleges are pervaded by a new spirit of enterprise, but there is still a vast amount to be done by way of improving servicees when we have the resources at our command. We must keep our eyes fixed on those needs and try to meet them head on. We must not allow ourselves to be diverted in the race—that is the great danger-and we must realise that those needs can be met only by driving the wealth-creation process as hard as we can to produce the necessary resources.
I am sure that we are on the right path. The challenge is to stay on it. The people of Wales wish to do so because it is the only path that offers them hope of a better life. They will enable us to stay on that path provided that we tell them clearly enough the positive benefits that lie ahead and contrast them with the troublesome, counterproductive and, sadly, negative prospects represented by the Opposition.
I am humble enough to think that I may be wrong, but I do not think so. Conservative Members must eliminate those negative, unprofitable prospects and accentuate our positive record of achievement and positive vision of a better material future for the people of Wales. Fortunately, we do not have to worry about the use that Welsh people will make of any prosperity that may come their way: they have an incomparable cultural and linguistic heritage and a rich spiritual inheritance which they will not allow to be lost in the sands of time.

Mr. Denzil Davies: It has always been a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts), but on this occasion, that pleasure is obviously tinged with sadness because, as he said, this is the last occasion on which he will address the House, certainly during a Welsh debate. He has always made his contributions with charm and civility. Although he and I have differed from time to time, especially on the assembly—perhaps he remembers one or two occasions in the dim and distant past when we debated the matter—I have never doubted, indeed I do not think that any hon. Member has, his patriotism and his dedication to his country, to its culture and its language. We shall certainly miss him in the House.
A year is longtime in politics, but it is not a long time in economics. Last year, we debated Welsh affairs and the Welsh economy. Despite the bullish upbeat performance by the Secretary of State for Wales, sadly, little has

changed fundamentally for the Welsh economy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) said. It is no good the Secretary of State muttering; sadly, Wales is still at the bottom of the league. It is the poorest region in Britain and has been for the past 18 years, through the 1980s and into the 1990s. The gap between Wales and the rest of Britain may be getting wider—I do not know—but the least that can be said is that we are at the bottom of the pile.
We can find plenty of people to blame. Labour Members can blame Conservative Members and the economic policies of the early 1980s, with interest rates at 17 per cent. and the crippling level of the pound, which destroyed many of our industries. The hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards) has his demons: those fat, sleazy, short Labour councillors. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) and his friends have their demons, too—the London Government and the English—and they are looking forward to the new Brussels Government, who, they believe, will one day solve all the problems. Therefore, we can all blame each other and others for this sad state of affairs.
The reality, however—the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West and others mentioned this in the devolution debate—is set out starkly in the Welsh budget, which the Welsh Office has produced, for 1994–95. It is never easy and never has been—I think that it was the Labour Government of 1974–79 who started this exercise—to produce a budget for a separate area, region or country, within a single economic unit such as the UK, but, obviously, things are getting more sophisticated and it is perhaps becoming easier to do so, because there is more information.
I congratulate the Welsh Office on producing the budget. No doubt there are assumptions and perhaps we can challenge some of them, but, by and large, it seems to be a fairly realistic portrayal and analysis of what was happening in 1994–95, although, since then, not much has changed in the Welsh economy.
The figures are stark and worrying. According to the Welsh budget, total Government expenditure was £15.6 billion, but revenue was only £9.9 billion. That is a deficit of revenue against expenditure of £5.7 billion. If we make certain assumptions and take the Welsh gross domestic product in 1994–95 to be £28 billion, we arrive at a dreadful Government borrowing requirement or fiscal deficit of 20 per cent.
When I saw that figure, I thought that it could not be true, so I decided to look at 1996–97, as there had been some improvements. I assumed no increase whatever in public expenditure, a growth rate of 2.5 per cent. a year, or 5 per cent. over the two years, and an increase in revenue of 2.5 per cent. a year, or 5 per cent. over the two years. I rounded up when it was favourable to Wales and rounded down when it was favourable to Wales. I increased the GDP by 2.5 per cent. a year for the coming year, but I still reached a borrowing requirement or fiscal deficit of 15 per cent. for the Welsh economy.
I shall not go back over the Maastricht debate, but we all know that the Maastricht treaty called for a fiscal deficit of 3 per cent. We all read about the troubles and problems of Chancellor Kohl and others in Germany, in trying to reduce the German fiscal deficit from 4 per cent. to 3 per cent.
I then looked up the figures for the European Union. The country with the highest deficit is Greece, with a figure of about 8 per cent. We are talking about a deficit of 15 per cent. for the Welsh economy, and that is on favourable assumptions. I do not believe that any country in the western world could survive with such a deficit. It would be impossible to fund a deficit of 15 per cent. Who would fund it? The banks certainly would not fund it, nor would major international corporations. The International Monetary Fund would not fund it without substantial cuts in public expenditure. It just would not happen.
I received at my house in my constituency a piece of paper from Plaid Cymru, advocating that Wales should leave the United Kingdom and join the European Union. That is a fine idea, but it did not explain how a 15 per cent. deficit in GDP would be funded if Wales were to move from one union to another. Some £5 billion would have to be found, and it would not come from the European Commission.
I see that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn has a newspaper cutting saying that Wales is to lose £200 million in regional aid. We are talking about not millions, but billions. We are talking about a deficit of £5 billion or slightly more. There is no way in which it could be funded. Mr. Jacques Santer would not fund such a deficit. The idea that any political party could go to the people of Wales in a general election and say, "Look at Ireland. We shall join the European Union and then we shall be able to survive as an independent nation," is simply impossible.
It is dishonest to the people of Wales to pretend that somehow it would be possible to switch from one union to another and finance an enormous deficit. It could not be done. The Welsh economy would disappear down a black hole. In theory, it could be financed by major cuts in public expenditure and pensions and major closures of hospitals and schools. It just is not credible. I should have thought that Plaid Cymru would at least do the people of Wales the service of making it quite clear that it is economically impossible.
We are also told that money could come to Wales in the same way as it comes to Ireland, and that if Wales could get over that huge chasm and become part of the European Union, it would get more money from the cohesion fund. It would probably receive about five or six times as much as it does now—the figure would probably increase from about £30 million to £40 million now, to about £200 million. That is quite a large sum, but we are talking about millions, not billions. The extra £200 million or so would make no dent in a borrowing requirement of more than £5 billion.
To return to the Welsh economy, it gives none of us any pleasure to draw attention to the difficulties, but they have to be faced. I hope that matters will improve and that the new LG investment, among others, will raise income levels and lower the need for public expenditure, but that can make only a small dent in the deficit in the Welsh economy.
As the right hon. Member for Conwy said, global competition for loose capital will increase. The wages that are paid in manufacturing and engineering in western countries and the United States are certainly far higher than the average wages in those industries, in the global

economy. As developing countries develop further and countries such as China begin to produce car components, it is inevitable that the pressure will be even greater on the income that we in the west obtain from producing goods that will also be produced by other countries. Competition will become more intense, and only way in which we in Wales will hold our own, improve and compete will be by trying to ensure that our education system is equipped for the global market.
There has been much emphasis on education in the debate. Companies require an extraordinary combination of skills in their managers and key personnel. They need people with literacy and numeracy skills and technological competence. That is a difficult combination of skills. Sadly, whatever has been said in the debate, I do not believe that the Welsh education system is equipped to create those skills.
Over the past 30 years, the gap between Welsh secondary education and that in the more prosperous parts of England has widened. It is my impression, not empirical evidence, that it has worsened. Certainly, the gap between Welsh state-funded secondary education and the better English public schools has become much wider.

Mr. Alex Carlile: The right hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Will he develop it further by agreeing that the fact that there are now almost no grants available for postgraduate education for Welsh students is diminishing the enormous skills that the brightest young Welsh people have to offer their country and the world? Does he agree that the Government have miserably and wretchedly ignored postgraduate education?

Mr. Davies: Indeed. My generation was able to benefit from that system, but the present generation cannot. Perhaps I can concentrate on the 12 to 19-year-olds, where the gap has grown wider.
In Wales, we pride ourselves on our democracy and the fact that we do not educate an elite. Wales is the only country in the United Kingdom that does not specifically educate an elite. The English do and so do the Scots. I am not quite sure about Northern Ireland, but I suspect that it does, too.
The main condemnation of the way in which the English and Scots educate their elite through their public school system is not that it is a boarding system, or even the fact that they educate an elite—it is that that elite is based on money, because access to the institutions depends on a person's resources. The French seem to have managed to educate an elite through their state system. The Germans, perhaps, have done so as well. The Americans are in an interesting position. They rightly pride themselves on the equality of opportunity that they provide, but they also make sure that they educate an elite. That elite is educated partly through private schools and partly through neighbourhood schools, bolstered by the planning and zoning system, which makes sure that the children who go to those schools are from very well-heeled homes.
Wales is one of the few countries that do not educate an elite. Perhaps we take pride in that—I do not know. The result is that the gap between our education system


and those in England and Scotland for children between the ages of 12, 13 or 14 and 19 is very wide. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that our state secondary system is able to make even a dent in that gap.
I have a brief suggestion.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman's argument means that he will support the provisions in the Education Bill that is before the House.

Mr. Davies: I heard the Secretary of State's brief comments about that. I do not think that the proposals go anywhere near far enough towards solving this very real problem. If those in the educational establishment in Wales read Hansard, no doubt I shall be lynched on my way back to the Principality, but I suggest that we should think about trying to educate an elite in Wales between the ages of 12 and 19.
The only way to do that would be by setting up centres of excellence. I shall not talk about elite schools any more—centres of excellence is a fine term. We should establish five or six centres of excellence to educate an elite, based not on money, but on competition, on merit, and on interview or examination.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Grammar schools.

Mr. Davies: No, not grammar schools. I grew up in the grammar school system, and I do not have a starry-eyed, romantic view of it. I do not believe that we can have a grammar school in every town.

Mr. Richards: The right hon. Gentleman said a moment ago that we did not educate an elite in Wales. Surely he of all people will realise that, some years ago, we did—we educated elite people to play rugby at grammar schools in Llanelli, Carmarthen, Bridgend, Gower—

Mr. Anderson: And Swansea.

Mr. Richards: And Swansea. They were an elite, educated by the grammar schools that I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman's party did away with.

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman knows better than that. I was not talking about sport. I was trying to address my remarks to the problem that Wales will face in, to use a vogue phrase, the global market in the next millennium. It is a real problem. We have never set out to educate an elite in Wales. The old grammar schools did not do that. The gap between our old grammar schools and the better grammar schools in England—and certainly the better public schools in England—was always wide. Let us have no romanticism about a grammar school in every town.
My suggestion, which no doubt will be shot down in flames by the educational establishment, is to set up five or six centres of excellence. They would have to be boarding centres, because we could not have more than five or six. Entry would be by competitive examination or interview. They would be funded by the state—I shall come back to that in a moment—and they would teach a small number of subjects. They would not teach the easy

subjects such as sociology, law, politics, business studies and the others that have crept into the A-level system to provide padding.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Bring back Latin.

Mr. Davies: Yes, indeed. The schools would teach the subjects that would equip young men and women in Wales to compete in this awful global economy that we are faced with. They would have to teach English, because literacy will be very important. It is no use teaching French—French is not on the Internet, and nor are German or Chinese. The language of the global market is English. Those who can communicate in English—when I watch some of our television programmes, I wonder whether some Welsh people can—will have an advantage. The schools should obviously also teach science and mathematics. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) muttered something about Latin. Indeed, we should teach the classics. There is no need to teach any more than that.
Where will the money come from? It cannot come from the present education budget, because that would defeat the whole purpose. We need to raise the standards of everybody. I am not talking about educating an elite at the expense of somebody else. We all have to address funding in this era of iron Chancellors and over-mighty central bank governors. The money would have to come from either a grant from the London Government or the rest of the Welsh Office budget. Hard choices would have to be made, and money might have to be taken from health, transport or other important services, because education is more important than anything else. If we do not equip our young people for the future, we shall not have much of a health service or a transport service or anything else to spend money on, bearing in mind the enormous gap between expenditure and revenue in Wales.
All nations need myths and perhaps small nations such as Wales need more than most. However, one myth that we can do without is the old one that the Welsh really believe in education and that we have a marvellous education system. We do not and we have not had one for a long time. If we do not acquire one, at the end of the next 20 years we shall still be at the bottom of the economic pile.

Mr. Rod Richards: I, too, begin by paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) for his long service and contribution, as a Member of this House and as a Minister, to his constituents and to the people of Wales.
The right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) made an interesting contribution, as always. He commented on the speech that I made during last Thursday's debate on the constitution. I should like to return to that issue for a short while this afternoon, because it is fundamental to the current debate on devolution, whether one is debating the Labour party's proposals or the more extreme proposal of independence campaigned for by Plaid Cymru.
Last week, I drew on data from the 1994–95 "Government Expenditure and Revenue" report for Wales, published in January this year. As the right hon. Member for Llanelli said, it shows a fiscal deficit of


£5.7 billion. That is a structural deficit—it is there every year. It is the difference between Government expenditure in 1994–95 of £15.6 billion, and tax receipts of £9.9 billion. Just to maintain public services at the current level and quality, £5.7 billion a year would have to be raised. That is not taking into consideration Plaid Cymru's promises and pledges, which although they are very difficult to cost would certainly add several billion pounds to that deficit.
Since my remarks last Thursday, the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), who I am afraid is not in his place at the moment, has come up with what I think he would argue are responses to the charges that Wales could not pay its way in the world at the current level of public services. He said that, if there were an independent Wales, its contribution to the defence budget would be much lower and, therefore, the cost of additional services and the deficit could be made up. I am afraid that that does not stand up to any scrutiny.
The hon. Member for Caernarfon said that, under Plaid Cymru, Wales would spend 1 per cent. of its gross domestic product on defence. The published figures for 1994–95 show that Wales's contribution to defence is £940 million a year. As the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) said, 1 per cent. of Welsh GDP is £280 million. The net contribution to the revenue of an independent Wales would therefore be something short of £700 million, which would still leave a recurring fiscal deficit of more than £5 billion a year.
It is something of a revelation that Plaid Cymru has attempted to quantify its defence policy of all policies because it has not attempted to quantify any other spending pledges. We have the figure of 1 per cent. for defence but nothing else. Normally, a country would decide how much to spend on defence by assessing national security and the threat to it. Having made such a threat assessment, the Government of the day of whichever country would decide how best to meet it by deciding how much money to spend and what resources would be required. I am sure that Plaid Cymru has not thought for a moment about a threat assessment or the national security implications of an independent Wales. Its policy is complete nonsense.
A short while ago, while listening to the debate, I wondered what sort of defence policy and forces Plaid Cymru might have in mind to defend Wales. It occurred to me that some day, under an independent Wales whose assembly is run by Plaid Cymru, we might see a flotilla of stainless steel coracles on the River Teifi, perhaps an armoured regiment of Skodas with mounted peashooters, or even an air squadron of bilingual carrier pigeons. I shall leave that to Plaid Cymru to consider if such a situation ever arises.
The other policy that Plaid Cymru has attempted to quantify is its health policy. About two years ago, it published what it called a health "White Paper", which contained pledges costing many hundreds of millions of pounds on top of the existing level of provision in Wales. The document said quite clearly that health and social services in Wales would be paid for by 9 per cent. of Welsh GDP. Had the person who wrote that paper taken the trouble to look at the data, they would have found that we already spend 10 per cent. of Welsh GDP on health and social services. So, without mentioning any

extra resources, Plaid Cymru would have to find an additional 1 per cent. of GDP just to maintain the current level of services.
Bearing in mind the fiscal deficit of £5 billion, the total tax take in Wales from all sources—income tax, corporation tax, value added tax, council tax, and so on—is £9.9 billion. For argument's sake and ease of calculation, let us call it £10 billion. Taxes across the board in Wales would have to be raised by 50 per cent. just to maintain services at today's levels. As the right hon. Member for Llanelli quite clearly said, that is just not feasible; it cannot be done. Plaid Cymru does itself and the people of Wales a great disservice by suggesting that an independent Wales with a Parliament in Cardiff could improve the quality of life in Wales—it could not. The right hon. Gentleman also blew a hole in the myth that Plaid Cymru has woven about European funding. We are talking about small beer—I suppose that it is small beer in Plaid Cymru's terms—of a couple of hundred million pounds here, and a couple of hundred million pounds there. I am talking about a recurring deficit of £5 billion. Members of Plaid Cymru should at least be honest with the people of Wales and say that what they plan cannot be done.
The other comment that the hon. Member for Caernarfon has published since I spoke last week is that much of Plaid Cymru's spending would be financed by increasing the basic rate of income tax in Wales by 2p in the pound, taking it up to 25p. One penny on the basic rate of income tax in Wales raises £60 million, and 2p raises £120 million. That would just about cover the cost of the Welsh television channel S4C, which would presumably be responsible to the assembly or parliament of an independent Wales. Plaid Cymru has been rather silent about S4C, as has the Labour party. Whether S4C would be responsible to an assembly and whether the assembly would finance it is a question for the Labour party as well as Plaid Cymru.
Before I turn to commenting on the Labour party, I should like to make one more point about Plaid Cymru. It continually says that it speaks for the people of Wales. Its members constantly deride the Conservatives because we have six Members of Parliament representing constituencies in Wales. At the last general election, Plaid Cymru was supported by 10 per cent. of the people in Wales—so it does not speak for them. The Conservatives were supported by and large by about 30 per cent. of the people in Wales. We therefore speak for rather more of the people of Wales than Plaid Cymru. It is offensive of Plaid Cymru to suggest, as I am sure the Labour party would also argue, that it speaks for the people of Wales, because 90 per cent. of them do not support Plaid Cymru.
As for the Labour party, it is regrettable that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) is not in his place. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy said, it does not take very long to get to north Wales. Those of us who have constituencies in north Wales frequently have to travel up late on a Thursday evening or very early Friday morning to attend meetings or surgeries. It is bread and butter for us, and just goes to show how rarely the hon. Gentleman has been in north Wales since 1992. Indeed, to my recollection, the only time that he visits north Wales is when there is some form of election pending.
I should like to ask Labour Front Benchers several questions. I do not expect to receive an answer to the first one, because I know that they—certainly the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair)—do not have an answer to it. It is the West Lothian question. If the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) has a formula to explain how to resolve the West Lothian question, with an assembly in Cardiff and a Parliament in Scotland, Conservative Members would dearly love to hear it.
The second question—as opposed to the West Lothian question—is more of a Cardiff West question. It was interesting—a mild revelation—to hear the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) talking about a Welsh Assembly forming committees to run the Welsh Development Agency, to run health and to run this and that. However, Conservative Members should like to know what the relationship would be between the Executive—in the form of the Secretary of State for Wales, who is responsible for services such as health and education in Wales—and the assembly? As he said a moment ago, an assembly would have some executive powers. However, the Secretary of State would not be a member of the assembly, and therefore would not have a vote in the assembly on how the Welsh bloc would be distributed or be able to take part in debates on those serious issues.
Therefore, what would be the relationship between an assembly with executive powers and a Secretary of State—who is presumably a member of the Cabinet—with executive powers? Which would be supreme in a dispute? How would a dispute be resolved? How would it work? Perhaps the hon. Member for Bridgend would like to answer that question.

Mr. Win Griffiths: I will arrange for the hon. Gentleman to receive a copy of our document, which explains those matters. Basically, however, the Welsh Assembly will assume the duties and responsibilities that are currently held by the Welsh Office.

Mr. Richards: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that an assembly would have no executive but merely advisory powers? Is he saying that it would have only the power to advise the Secretary of State?

Mr. Griffiths: No.

Mr. Richards: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify what he is saying? If a Welsh Assembly would take the place of the Welsh Office, it would have no executive powers and merely advise the Secretary of State. Perhaps he does not understand how the Welsh Office works.

Mr. Griffiths: The powers and responsibilities currently held by the Secretary of State for Wales will be vested in the Welsh Assembly.

Mr. Richards: Therefore a Welsh Assembly would assume the powers of the Secretary of State. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore tell us—[Horn. MEMBERS: "No."] The point is very interesting. What would be the Secretary of State's role in the Cabinet? Would he be a messenger boy from the assembly to the Cabinet—or would there be a Secretary of State?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes.

Mr. Richards: I will let the hon. Gentleman think on that for a moment.
My understanding of the proposed assembly is that some of its members would be elected by proportional representation. It would be composed of 60 representatives: 40 of whom will be territorial, representing each constituency in Wales, and 20 of whom will be elected in a list. I should like to ask a question from the point of view of my and other hon. Members' constituents. If a constituent has an issue that he would like to raise with an assembly—with the executive powers that have been described very loosely by the hon. Member for Bridgend—should he contact his territorial, constituency representative or a list representative—or would there be a two-tier system? How would it operate? We do not know the answer. If the hon. Gentleman or the hon. Member for Cardiff, West have an answer, we should very much like to hear it in the reply to this debate.
I should like to return to the matter of Sianel 4 Cymru. It will be very important to many people in Wales to know whether a Welsh Assembly would take over funding of S4C or whether the Department of National Heritage would continue to do so. It is an important issue, and perhaps the hon. Member for Cardiff, West will deal with it in his reply.

Mr. Alex Carlile: In the early evening a year from now—on the occasion of the next Welsh day debate—I suspect that I shall be putting my feet on the domestic fender, pouring a glass of wine for my wife, talking to the children about the day they have had at school and at university and suffering from a little bit of withdrawal at not being in the House to take part in it. I have now been an hon. Member for 14 years, although I do not even pretend to possess anything like the distinction of the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) or to have the respect that he has earned from all hon. Members. I think that many hon. Members—particularly those of us who know north and mid-Wales well—look on him as the best Secretary of State that Wales never had.
As I look back on my 14 years in the House, I think that I will regard occasions such as this—Welsh day debates, Welsh Grand Committee debates and similar occasions—as perhaps not making very much everyday difference to the way of life of people in Wales, but as demonstrating that a tradition of political understanding and lively political debate continues in Wales as expressed in the House, as it did 100 years ago—when the early ferment of Welsh politics, which was exemplified by Lloyd George, was beginning to develop, and when Welsh politics really began to have an enormous impact on the wider politics of the United Kingdom.
Indeed, I would say to those who have ambitions or are interested in a political career—if that is the right noun to ascribe to it; I have always thought that politics was more an activity than a job or a career—that they could start in no better fashion than by reading the early speeches of David Lloyd George, the speeches of people such as Tom Ellis, the very distinguished former hon. Member who served Merionethshire, or those of other of our Welsh political forebears, on whom of course I look with particular affection.
On the wall of my office in the House is a map—from the "Daily Graphic" of that time—of the result of the 1892 general election, which was presented to me by a


constituent during the 1992 general election campaign. It shows every single seat in Wales having fallen to the Liberal party. As I leave the House, I wish that I could deliver the same result to the Welsh Liberal Democrats. I will leave it to the public to judge how well the Welsh Liberal Democrats should do at the next general election. I say without fear, however, that I think that we still have a very important role to play in Welsh politics.
When a Welsh regional tier of government—with its democratic element, in whatever form—is established, I look forward to the flowering within that arena of young talents coming from the Welsh Liberal Democrats. I hope that they will be able to make a very considerable contribution to the politics of Wales. Like, I suspect, the right hon. Member for Conwy and other hon. and right hon. Members leaving the House at the forthcoming general election, I shall miss the House enormously. However, like them, I am beginning to discover that opportunities lie outside the House, which perhaps have around them the framework of real life.
On such an occasion, the temptation is of course to indulge oneself in an exegesis of the breadth of Welsh politics, to offer a blueprint for the future and to try to teach some lessons about mistakes made during one's time in the House, but I do not propose to go down that road. I want to talk about only one specific subject.
I am the son of a doctor. My father came to this country in early middle life and worked in the Polish hospital in Penley. We lived in Ruabon. Then he took a job in the national health service as a general practitioner, running a practice—at first single-handed—in Burnley, an industrial town in Lancashire. For many decades, we lived in the house that contained his surgery. I remember hearing from my bedroom window the clacking of the clogs as the cotton workers walked along Trafalgar street to the cotton mills at 5.30 every morning. That was a familiar sound until the mid-1950s. Many of my father's patients were cotton workers, until the cotton industry closed. Another large slice of his patients were coal miners, who came not only from Lancashire, but from Wales, Italy, Poland and Hungary. They came from everywhere. Now the coal mines have closed.
Many of my father's patients lived in streets that evoke in my mind wonderful memories of childhood—Rowley street and Sackville street. They were little slum streets of that great industrial Lancashire town which had already suffered, between the turn of the century and the middle, a decline in its population of almost 50 per cent. The planners—I make no criticism of the political party in charge at the time, although it will not be difficult to guess which party ran Burnley county borough in the 1950s—took the view that the slums should be removed and replaced with beautiful housing estates. Of course, that did not work, and the result was disjointed communities. I still visit Burnley occasionally, because my widowed mother lives there, and I also like to go to Turf Moor, as I have since I was five and a half years old. Burnley still has a community spirit, but it is fighting to retain it.
My father started his life practising medicine as a specialist in central Europe before he became a general practitioner in Lancashire. He used to say to me that the most important social change that had happened in any country this century was the introduction of the national health service. I used to go out on his rounds with him in

his Austin A30, not only because the nice ladies in Rowley street gave me sweets, but because I enjoyed his company and the education he gave me, which has stayed with me throughout my life and long after his death.
My father used to say that whether a person was a prince or a pauper—he told me to remember that all princes were bandits once—the national health service treated him the same. If my father chose, as a general practitioner, to send a patient to Professor Charnley in Preston for one of the early hip replacement operations, he could do so as a matter of right, because that was his diagnosis. If he chose to send a patient for a specialist consultation in London, because he judged that the best thoracic surgeon was there, he could do so, as long as he made his choice intelligently. He was greatly respected for the way in which he ran his practice, and his message about the value of the national health service has been imbued in me.
I have continued to take a close interest in medicine and health issues during my life and during my time in the House. I have done it professionally, through my legal practice, and politically. Like the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell), I am a lay member of the General Medical Council. I have been one for some eight years now, and I have learnt a lot about the effect of Government policies on the health service from a different viewpoint, well away from the House.
During my representation of the wonderful county of Montgomeryshire, I have seen the treatment of people's health suffer because of the Government's policies. I regret that. I say in all sincerity to the Under-Secretary that I accept that the Government have not been malevolent, but they have got their policies wrong. The national health service, which my father taught me to believe benefited everyone equally, does not benefit everyone equally any more. That principle has been abandoned—wrongly.
The Secretary of State alluded to the community hospitals in the Dyfed Powys health authority area. There could be no worse example of the way in which people have been regarded not as patients, but as pawns, than the behaviour of that health authority. I am delighted to read in my local newspapers that the Under-Secretary has condemned Dyfed Powys health authority for its behaviour, which should be put on record.
On 23 December 1996, the health authority, deliberately behaving in a Scrooge-like fashion, issued a statement that included the judgment from its powerful position that eight community hospitals in the old counties of Dyfed and Powys would have to close. That was an appalling time to issue the statement and it caused widespread anxiety over Christmas and the new year among staff, patients and potential patients.
On the day the press release was issued, I took the trouble to write to Mrs. Vanessa Bourne, the so-called chairman of the authority, to ask her to reveal to me, as a Member of Parliament for the area concerned, which eight community hospitals she intended to close, and to supply the background papers that justified her conclusion. I received a response of an arrogance that would shock even hon. Members. I wrote to her again. I asked again to see the background papers and I asked which hospitals would be closed. After many weeks, I still await a response to that letter.
The health authority released a further press statement in which every member of the health authority had a little sentence quoted, including references to politicians as though we were the ignorant detritus of society. Those arrogant people should remember that they have been appointed by politicians, and that they are accountable through their board and via politicians to the House. The health authority has produced a plan with no background papers, which refers to no individual hospital, which has no quality learning behind it—the health authority has not denied those facts—and which has caused panic throughout mid-Wales.
Last week in Llanidloes, 1,000 people attended a public meeting about the future of Llanidloes hospital, which is a wonderful community hospital which could be held out as an example to the world, let alone to rural Wales. I regret that the Conservative party failed to send a spokesman to that meeting. Unfortunately, excuses were made. The feeling of the meeting was clear.
This afternoon, the Secretary of State issued a severe rebuke to Dyfed Powys health authority. I hope that that rebuke will be carried through to its logical conclusion, which should include the dismissal of the chairman of the health authority, followed by the resignation of her board. Apparently, the Government believe that the disciplines of management and private industry should be applied to the national health service. I do not disagree that management discipline is useful in the public service. However, if that board and that chairman had been employed by a company in Wales—such as Control Techniques or Laura Ashley, which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Conwy—the major shareholders would have had them out by midnight. The Government should have that lot out by midnight.
I wish to mention one further national health service issue that is more directly related to my upbringing as a general practitioner's son. Since I went to live in the Welshpool and Newtown area of mid-Wales, I have been the patient of a doctor in Llanfair Caereinion. He is a partner in an excellent practice, and a doctor with political principles. I do not know for which party he votes, but I know that his political principles belong on our side, rather than the Conservative side, of the House.
On principle, and with his partners' agreement, my doctor has chosen not to be a fundholder. There is one similar practice in the area at Westbury in Shropshire, on the border, and about half the patients of that practice live in my constituency.
If I want treatment under the national health service, I am now at a disadvantage; the hospitals where it is provided delay my treatment because my general practitioner, on the basis of a well-thought-out belief and judgment, does not wish to follow the Government's encouragement to have a fundholding practice.
That is not the national health service that my father taught me to respect. It is not the national health service that Lloyd George and others created in this country, and taught this country to respect. It is a national health service infected by greed and devil-take-the-hindmost. That is not the national health service that we want.
As I depart this place and leave politics, I regret above all things the fact that the national health service seems to be in worse fettle than when I entered the House 14 years ago. I hope that the next generation of Welsh politicians will heed the message, and will do what they

can to ensure that the great tradition of Welsh politicians who have sought better health for their constituents is maintained for future generations.

Sir Raymond Powell: I regret the fact that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) is leaving the House—although I get on well with all his Liberal colleagues in the House, too, and have done since I was the Opposition pairing Whip. I have always listened attentively to the hon. and learned Gentleman's speeches, and today was no exception, especially when he was reminiscing about his father and the fact that in the area where he lived he could hear the cotton workers walking across the cobblestones.
Although the Western Mail last week printed my birthplace as Machynlleth, I was not born and bred anywhere near there; I was born in Treorchy, in the Rhondda valley. I am proud of my birth and heritage, and of the people of the Rhondda, who are no different from the people in Ogmore, the constituency that I represent now, or from the people of the other valleys.
The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned Lloyd George and the national health service, but I have read and reread all the words uttered by Nye Bevan during the introduction of the national health service—something that the nation could be proud of. However, the health service has gradually been eroded and left underfunded by the present Administration.
I also share the views that the hon. and learned Gentleman expressed about the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts), who is one of the Secretaries of State we never had. The right hon. Gentleman deserved the office, there is no doubt about that. It used to annoy me every time a Secretary of State was appointed from the other side of Offa's dyke, when everyone in all the parties in the House knew that there was a Member from Wales who could, and would, do the job. Undoubtedly, he would have been nearer to us, because he is from Wales. It annoys me to think that, in the past 18 years, we have had five Secretaries of State for Wales, all of whom were living outside Wales.
I must get on to the subject of my speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or you will be calling me to order. What I wanted to say is that this debate could prove historic. The annual St. David's day debate for 1997 is taking place in the year of the general election that will end 18 years of the most vicious Conservative Government this country has ever known.
I could spend some time telling the story of the industrial rape of Wales that has taken place over those 18 years, but most of my constituents are already well aware of that story, and the other electors of Wales know the nightmare only too well, because they have suffered, and will continue to suffer until a new Government with vision and policies for change are elected. That cannot be much more than 63 days away.
All my time in Parliament has been spent in opposition, but I will fight the next election to retain my seat in Ogmore and cross the floor to the Government Benches. The electors throughout the Principality are crying out for the opportunity to vote; they are crying out for change. They will vote in their traditional way, but this time they will look to the English constituencies, hoping that this time they, too, will want to see change.
We have seen the number of Conservative Members in Wales reduced to six, and this election we shall see a Conservative-free Wales. Despite what the press and the other media say about politicians, there will be dancing in the streets and celebrations when the electors give their verdict, perhaps on 1 May—the day on which we in Ogmore have always celebrated May day. This year, we shall have something else to celebrate—a Labour victory.
Last week, we had a debate on the constitution. I suggest that hon. Members who could not attend read the Official Report of that debate; but, although I have nothing but praise for the Hansard writers, they could not capture the atmosphere of the occasion, or the sincerity of most of the speeches. Many more hon. Members wished to contribute as well, but time was not on their side.
I said that this debate could prove historic. It is being held on the day of the Wirral, South by-election, which could put the Government in a minority. If a vote of confidence is called, the election could come early. The debate could be historic for another reason too—it is being held on the eve of the Wales Labour party conference, which will be asked to agree the Welsh Labour party executive committee's proposals for devolution.
In the 1970s, I was party to what was then the vision for the future. That is what Labour party activists called the strongly held views of supporters of devolving government to an elected Welsh Assembly. Mixing reflection, memory, reality and truth, I recall the mood of members of the Labour party in Wales when they met in Llandudno in 1977.
That conference, which I chaired, adopted the document prepared by the executive committee for the introduction by the Labour Government of a Wales Act. Hansard for that period will give details of the discussions and decisions. No doubt history will record who was responsible for that lost opportunity. Now, 20 years later, we again have the opportunity to seek a reversal—the opportunity to present to the people of Wales, by their agreement in a referendum, the devolution of power to an elected assembly.
At least some of our efforts in the 1970s have not been wasted. At that time, we argued for an elected assembly with unitary authorities, and some power going to community councils at the local roots. Over the past two years, 22 unitary authorities, covering the whole of Wales, have been established. That is a major step forward, and it is one to be welcomed. I hope that, following devolution, the Welsh Assembly will deal with the escalating problems—including the lack of finance and the system of allocation of funding, which is tightly controlled by the Secretary of State. I hope that this will be remedied by an elected assembly. The £7 billion budget that is now allocated and controlled by the Secretary of State—added to the 180 quangos under his responsibility, which spend more than £2.5 billion and have 850 appointees—is a reason for democratic accountability to be introduced under a Welsh Assembly.
The fears of the Prime Minister and Conservative Members that Welsh devolution threatens the fabric of our unitary state are totally unfounded. The debate last Thursday on the constitution tended to concentrate on Scotland and the House of Lords, and much was said

about the West Lothian question. Some suggest that it is insoluble, instead of seeking some way of resolving it. Those who read the Hansard report of last Thursday's debate will have seen that my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland)—in an excellent speech—spoke on the English regions and suggested that English regional government provides part of the answer to the West Lothian question. One of the major reasons why the devolution proposals in 1977 and 1978 failed was undoubtedly the lack of realistic and rational thought on English regional government. I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend give the details of the progress that has been made in the creation of the North of England Assembly of Local Authorities. I hope that other English regions will follow that lead.
We have the problem in reverse in Wales. Where is the justice in allowing English Members to speak and vote on business which is exclusively the interest of the Welsh nation? Where is the justice when English Members are elected to Committees to provide the Government with a majority to get their business through? Where is the justice in allowing a large number of English Members to table questions for Welsh question time, thus depriving Welsh Members of their only opportunity each month to ask the Secretary of State questions applicable to Wales and to their constituencies? They have no other parliamentary opportunity. Where is the justice in having a Secretary of State for Wales—the controller of the Welsh Office—who is not a Welsh Member of Parliament? In the past 18 years, we have had five Secretaries of State for Wales, none of whom has represented a Welsh constituency.
Much has been said about the reformed Welsh Grand Committee, but the Committee of Selection has to appoint the Secretary of State and other English Members to enable them to sit on the Committee so that the Government have a majority. On one occasion, when Peter Walker turned up to start a debate at the Welsh Grand Committee, he was challenged on a point of order and the Committee of Selection had to be recalled to appoint him and others before the business could proceed. There is talk that a solution might be to reduce the number of Welsh Members of Parliament, but it is unthinkable that, as long as Westminster decides on defence, foreign affairs, taxation and social security for Wales, Wales should not continue to be adequately represented at Westminster.
After the election, there will be 72 Scottish Members of Parliament, 40 Welsh Members and 17 Members from Northern Ireland, making a total of 129. There will be 529 English Members of Parliament—so what is there for the Government to fear? Last Thursday, the Prime Minister laid down a challenge that the election would be fought on the constitution and on Scottish and Welsh devolution. The Labour party in Wales is ready for that challenge. The present system of holding the Government to account is deplorable and it is scandalous to allow more money to be spent by unelected and unaccountable quangos than by directly elected local councils. We need to roll back the tide of quangos and revive democracy in local government. The plans for a Welsh Assembly have been set out in detail and we will legislate for their implementation in the first year of a Labour Government.
When discussions were proceeding on our devolution proposals, I made my views known on the questions of a referendum and proportional representation. I am glad that


a referendum will be called, and I am confident that, this time, the result will be totally different. In my view, there should be 80 elected members of a Welsh Assembly—based on current parliamentary constituencies and election procedures—with two from each of the 40 parliamentary constituencies. I have also suggested that there should be one male and one female candidate in each constituency. This would be a great step forward towards achieving a fair gender balance, and would avoid the problem of women-only shortlists. It would also signal to all the women in Wales and the rest of the UK that the Labour party wants more women in the Government.
Perhaps this weekend, the women attending the conference at Llandudno will demand a change in the executive committee's proposals and will rebel—like the Tory women of the Wirral who, according to the Evening Standard, are flocking to the polling stations to vote Labour. I hope that they will take up the challenge over the weekend and change the proposals of the executive committee.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) spoke on Thursday and recalled his speeches on the Scotland and Wales Bill and the Wales Bill in 1976 and 1977. He promised the House at that time that we would return to the subject in due course. That was 20 years ago. We have had 20 years to reconsider our policies and to persuade the electors about what devolution would mean to Wales. It has worked, and people are better informed and are responding positively. I believe that devolution will be accepted in the referendum that will follow a Labour victory.

Mr. Gareth Wardell: It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Sir R. Powell)—a friend since I was elected to the House in 1982. I am sure that our friendship will continue after I, too, leave the House at the forthcoming election. It has been my privilege to have been a member of the Welsh Affairs Committee since I was elected, and to have been its Chairman since December 1983. My good health has enabled me not to miss one meeting—and, indeed, not one minute of its proceedings—since I was made Chairman.
With your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to share a few memories with the House before turning to the subject that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) raised.
The first highlight I remember was the promise, made in 1983 by the then Secretary of State for Wales, that there would be a second cardiac surgery and cardiology centre in Wales. At last, the present Secretary of State said in the debate today that, later this year, the second cardiac centre would open in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson). It has been much in demand. As far back as 1983, it was recognised that only slightly fewer than 800 adult open heart operations a year were being carried out in the University hospital of Wales in Cardiff, when the need was for at least 1,300.
It is always a bad idea in politics to claim credit for anything, but the Welsh Affairs Committee was at least partly responsible for eliciting one statement from the consultant cardiologist at the Heath hospital in Cardiff which influenced Ministers in the Welsh Office: he wrote to the Committee saying that patients were dying on the

wards because of the lack of intensive care facilities. The response was fast, and a promise was made that the new centre would be delivered.
In 1983, the Welsh Office and the Department of the Environment issued waste management paper 25, concerning clinical waste disposal in England and Wales. Unfortunately, the Welsh Office issued it to local authorities in Wales and not to health authorities. At that time, responsibility for monitoring all emissions to air of hospital incinerators lay firmly with health authorities, and it was a major surprise to them to find that out when they came before the Committee in January 1990.
The Welsh Office responded in a wonderful way: it dispatched a civil servant to write a letter to us saying that, with hindsight, it was difficult to understand how the situation had come about and that new guidance was being issued to all health authorities in Wales laying responsibility on them.
I remember an outbreak of anthrax on Singret farm, just outside the village of Llay, near Wrexham. The Welsh Office was intent on prosecuting the farmer for allowing slurry to run over the land around the farm, but the Committee was able to persuade the then Secretary of State, now Lord Walker, to pay compensation, purely as a one-off ex gratia payment, of £600,000 to the farmer, to enable him to carry on with the essential work of clearing up the major problem on his pig farm.
Rechem International, now owned by Shanks and McEwan, presented an interesting problem because of the incineration of polychlorinated biphenyls at the plant in Pontypool. For many years, there was a running battle between the company and the community of New Inn around the incinerator.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) and I were delighted to be able to persuade the Welsh Office to take a major step forward in setting up an independent monitoring system under the august leadership of Professor Lewis Roberts, the eminent chemist at the university of East Anglia. That enabled people to be confident that the emissions did not pose any further significant health risks.
We enjoyed considering planning in the open countryside. We examined six authorities in detail, with pride of place perhaps going to Ceredigion. The way in which it carried out its planning decisions was novel, if I say no more. The view of the chairman of planning was that the Welsh Office had the utmost cheek to interfere in any way by issuing so-called circulars and Acts of Parliament.
We were able to persuade the Welsh Office that the hundreds of houses in the open countryside in Wales, flouting all its circulars and legislation, were a matter to which it should pay some attention. I am delighted that it has at least gone a little way towards preventing the continuation of such a situation, although even this week we were alerted by the Welsh Office local authority commissioner to certain planning applications that are still being decided on the personality of the applicant rather than on planning grounds.
The Secretary of State painted a wonderful picture of the quality of Welsh bathing beaches. European Community directive 160 was introduced in 1976, under a Labour Government, but Conservative Governments subsequently, for as long as 10 years, interpreted the definition of bathing beaches in such a way that there was not one in Wales, and


only nine in England, so of course there was no need in Wales to apply the rules on the Escherichia coli and the faecal coliforms specified in the directive.
When the Secretary of State waxes lyrical about the quality of Welsh bathing beaches, he seems to assume that every beach in Wales is a bathing beach. In practice, there are 51 defined bathing beaches in Wales—the so-called Euro-beaches—but many more are not so defined under the directive.

Mr. Richards: The hon. Gentleman has been a distinguished Chairman of the Welsh Affairs Committee, and I for one shall miss him when he departs the House after the general election. He was saying how effective the Committee has been as a watchdog on the Government. Does he agree that it is a great shame that those who watch the affairs of the House in some detail, and write and comment on them, have not paid more attention to the Committee and to how effective it has been over the years? Perhaps he would like to comment on the need for a Welsh Assembly in the light of how effective the Committee has been.

Mr. Wardell: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman looks at the Committee's work in that way. The critical factor about a Welsh Assembly will be whether its presence will lead to improved government for Wales and to more jobs, better housing and better health. In the referendum campaign it will be crucial for those arguments to be demonstrated, because if they cannot be demonstrated the whole exercise will have to be called into question. I look forward to a vigorous assessment.
The Welsh Affairs Committee had to examine the proposed closure of Mynydd Mawr hospital in Tumble—the village I was brought up in, where my father has been the village barber for 64 years—where my mother was an auxiliary nurse and where my sister was a patient for some time.
When the former East Dyfed health authority had the gall to issue a consultation paper the quality of which was so low as to insult the intelligence of the local people, the Committee visited Tumble and was appalled to find that the chief nursing officer of the health authority had never visited the hospital, although he was in large part responsible for drawing up the consultation document.
The quality of this month's Dyfed Powys health authority document shows that it has not learnt the lessons of the old East Dyfed health authority. It is prepared to issue consultation documents that again insult the intelligence of local people. The health authority employs 164 people. If this is the best it can do, we must ask seriously whether the Welsh Office should take over the commissioning of health services there. If this is the quality that it is prepared to deliver, I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery that the whole board should be dismissed immediately and someone who knows what quality means should be put at the helm.
I want to consider three or four major points in the document to illustrate the points of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery to ensure that the House understands what is at stake. Like him, I am a member of the General Medical Council and I find it distressing that a health authority should issue such a document.

Paragraph 3.3 on page 3 summarises seven jobs of the health authority. The first is assessing health needs. The sixth job that it says it does is to
evaluate how we are progressing".
Nowhere in the document is there any attempt to assess the extent to which health needs are being met.
To take the example of diabetes—I am proud to be the chairman of all-party diabetic group—the health authority has little idea of the incidence the disease. That was admitted by the Secretary of State for Health when I put that point to him on the Floor two weeks ago. How can the health authority measure what progress is being made to meet the health care needs of diabetic patients in Dyfed Powys when it does not even know how many people with that problem reside there? I could repeat the point across the board, but for it to claim that it is assessing needs when, abysmally, it does not have the necessary information, is the utmost cheek.
In the fourth paragraph on page 17, the authority talks about clinical effectiveness. The report states:
Next year we will review one area of clinical practice which is not considered effective. We will then decide either to purchase a significantly reduced level of this service or not purchase it at all.
It does not say which area of clinical practice. It has not yet considered the effectiveness of any area of clinical practice, yet that is its function. Why wait until next year when it can do it now? There are 164 people employed in the health authority, which is charged with purchasing health services for its people based on clinical effectiveness, and it is to be done next year. That is its job, but it is not doing it.
Page 23 deals with maternity services and says that Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists guidelines state that a consultant-led unit should deal with a minimum of 2,000 births per annum, but the document uses the 1983 figures. In a consultation document, the authority cannot tell us how many births there were in Dyfed Powys in each of its hospitals in 1996. Is the health authority so indolent that it cannot be bothered to find out? It does not have the figures for live births for 1993 in Withybush hospital, only those for West Wales general hospital and Bronglais.
My next point makes me more angry than any of the others and was again mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery. The Government say that they are committed to community care, but paragraph 16 shows that the health authority is, like the Welsh Office, trying to get the trust to do its dirty work. It does not name the community hospitals that are to be closed; it says that it will leave it to the trusts to decide. The Welsh Office put that system in place and it is its responsibility to ensure that the system is made to work. The Secretary of State appointed the chairman and the non-executive directors of the health authority, which says that it is prepared to support the closure of up to eight community hospitals.
The crucial point that makes me more angry than anything else is the farce—I put it no higher—of the Government's handling of the discharge of patients from hospital and the social care plans drawn up for them. I have seen frail elderly people who have had strokes and major surgery who are in no position to understand a social care plan, for which they have to ask before they can see it. The farce is that social care plans are supposed to identify—this affects not only elderly people, but others


who are discharged into the community, such as the mentally ill—how much physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, chiropody or community dentistry is needed. The Government know that there are not enough people in Wales to do that work and fulfil the social care plans.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: I may not have enough time to deal with all the hon. Gentleman's remarks later, so at this important point I should tell him that we will publish shortly—in the next week or so—our assessment of those services in relation to at least three parts of Wales. While he is working himself up into a lather because the provisions are not operating properly, he should recognise that we have an inspectorate to examine operations on the ground. We believe that that information should be put into the public domain, as it soon will be.

Mr. Wardell: I am pleased to hear that, but I do not have confidence that it can be delivered. When the Committee considered severe head injury rehabilitation, we visited the homes of people in different parts of Wales. It was plain that the physiotherapy and occupational therapy that they needed was not available because not enough therapists have been attracted into the health service in Wales to deal with them. If there are not enough physiotherapists in an area, it is a farce to put into a social care plan that someone needs two physiotherapy sessions of two hours a week—or that people with diabetes need a chiropodist every month because they have feet problems.
It is a farce when somebody in the House has to say, "The King is in the altogether. He is as naked as the day that he was born." What is happening—I see it when I go around—is that people are languishing in their homes because the physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and chiropodists are not available. Some manpower planning is necessary. If the Government would say openly, "We agree that there is a huge gap," people would know when they are given social care plans that their delivery is impossible.
I shall finish by saying a few words about dentistry. The Government and dentists have been on a collision course for some time. People do not realise that deregistration can now take place after 15 months. As from this month, there is a difference between what dentists and general medical practitioners may do. People registered with a dentist can be deregistered after 15 months. That is happening in large numbers, and it has important consequences.
If a person is not registered with a dentist, the dentist owes them no duty of care. That is rarely an issue for people until they experience pain of dental origin, but when it occurs they have great difficulty obtaining immediate treatment. The usual chain of events is that a person in excruciating pain, who no longer has an NHS dentist, rings around the area to find a dentist who will take him or her on.
I received a letter this week from my dentist saying that he is no longer prepared to treat me as an NHS patient. He gave me the option of joining BUPA or being treated by him privately. If I were not in a position to pay—fortunately, I am—either BUPA or for the private plan that my dentist has given me, I would turn to my doctor, who would prescribe me analgesics or antibiotics, or I would turn up at the hospital casualty department,

but analgesics and antibiotics do not deal with the fundamental cause of pain. GPs are already under great stress, and their problems will be exacerbated by patients turning up at their surgeries, and major casualty departments will have serious difficulties unless they have a maxilla-facial department with doctors and dentists on call. People in great pain inevitably take time off work, which has economic consequences.
The Government have driven the dental profession to leave the national health service on a large scale)and1he people of Wales now find it extremely difficult to find a dentist with whom they can register. I hope that, when he winds up, the Minister will say that the community dental service will be expanded in Wales as a safety net to ensure that the scenario that I have described will not come about.

Sir Raymond Powell: You said at the start of your speech that you are retiring at the general election. As you are an hon. Friend of mine, I wish to say that the speech that you have just delivered is a classic. We have always come and listened to your speeches—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order.

Sir Raymond Powell: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I wish you well for the future. The House is grateful for your contribution to Welsh debates and to the Welsh Affairs Committee.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that I have just proved that my tolerance has no end.

Mr. Wardell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words.
I hope that the Secretary of State for Wales will consult closely the Secretary of State for Social Security to ensure that Benefit Agency offices in Wales do not close. It will be a disgrace if elderly and vulnerable people are denied first-class information on the benefits that they can receive. Indeed, closure would be a severe blow to many of them.
It has been a pleasure to chair the Welsh Affairs Committee. I see around me many right hon. and hon. Members from all political parties who have served that Committee well, and I am grateful to them. They have all, whichever side of the Chamber they sit on, become my friends, and I am delighted that that has happened. The right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) has been a stalwart in the Committee since he joined it, and we have worked extremely well together. I say that with great respect. I have watched the right hon. Gentleman carefully over the years, and learnt quite a few lessons from seeing the balance that he has brought to many debates.
I wish to thank the three Clerks, who are still in the House—David Harrison, Mark Hutton and Philippa Helme—and the staff who have supported them. The work that any Select Committee does relies heavily on its support staff.
It is with, in a sense, regret that the one job I have thoroughly enjoyed since I have been in the House is chairing the Welsh Affairs Committee. I hope that whoever takes over will do as good a job as our former Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East


(Mr. Anderson). I learnt a lot from him. Before him, there was Mr. Leo Abse, who was famous in the House, and we all learnt a great deal from him, too.
Thank you foryour indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: It is a great honour and privilege to follow the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) tonight. This has been a strange debate, because we have listened to three speeches from hon. Members who will leave the House at the next election: the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts); the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile); and the hon. Member for Gower. Reference has been made to their contributions not only to the House but to Welsh politics.
It is also right to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gower for the part that he has played as Chairman of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. Those of us who had the privilege of serving with him on the Committee will remember the tremendous attention to detail that he displayed in all his work. We wish him well in his occupation once he leaves the House.
This has been an interesting debate for members of Plaid Cymru tonight. Two hon. Members—one from either side of the House—have devoted a large part of their speeches to the policy that my party espouses. I did not agree with their interpretation of that policy, but it has been a privilege and honour to listen to other people talking about it.
I drew an analysis of the time spent by the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards) when he discussed my party in the debate on the constitution on 20 February, and he did exactly the same tonight. He spent 19 minutes discussing Plaid Cymru, and a mere seven minutes discussing the other Opposition party. It is clear where he thinks opposition to him will come at the next election.
The hon. Gentleman made an interesting and remarkable speech on 20 February, and I shall concentrate on one aspect of it—it would be impossible to deal with all of it in a short speech, because it was so full of inaccuracies. He spoke of Wales's position within the European Union and its entitlement to structural funds from the European Union. That point was alluded to by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies).
I shall do the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West the honour of quoting his speech on 20 February. He said that Wales does not qualify for funding under the objective 1 criteria that currently pertain, and added:
Indeed, that status reflects a level of economic deprivation that I would not like to see inflicted on any part of Wales."—[Official Report, 20 February 1997; Vol. 290, c. 1114.]
The sad fact is that his party has inflicted it on parts of Wales. Some parts of Wales now have the lowest income levels of any country in the British Isles, and some of the lowest in western Europe.
We have to get one fact relating to European funding absolutely straight: two areas of Wales would qualify under the current criteria. The old counties of Gwynedd and Dyfed easily qualify under those criteria, as do the old coal mining areas of south Wales. The old coal mining

valleys of Glamorgan would qualify and, if one included the coal mining valleys of Gwent, south Wales would still be a borderline case. Under the criteria adopted in 1993, both would have received objective 1 funds. The reason why we did not secure those funds is that the Welsh Office did not adopt what I would describe as a robust negotiating position when those matters were discussed in Brussels.
Welsh Office Ministers tell us that they do not want Wales to qualify under objective 1—that was the tone of the remarks of the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West and of the Secretary of State during the last Welsh Office Questions. Yet Department of Trade and Industry Ministers were not reticent about parts of England qualifying for objective 1 status; nor were Scottish Office Ministers reticent about parts of Scotland qualifying for objective 1 status.
Scottish Office Ministers went to Brussels, argued their case and secured objective 1 status for the highlands and islands of Scotland; and the Deputy Prime Minister argued the case for Merseyside to be granted objective 1 status. At the same time, the counties of Gwynedd and Dyfed and the valleys of south Wales had an equal claim to qualification for objective 1 status, but the Welsh Office hardly put up a case in Brussels. Those are the facts.
What are the criteria? Let me put them on the record: if an area has less than 75 per cent. per capita of the average EU gross domestic product, it qualifies. The two counties on the western seaboard of Wales therefore qualify, although the old coal mining areas have slightly over the qualifying percentage, at perhaps 76 per cent. or 77 per cent. of average EU GDP. One would have thought that it would be in the interests of Wales to get the increased funding that objective 1 status brings. Ministers tell us that we are talking about an odd £100 million here and there, but the truth is that the extra funding is far greater than that.
I have never claimed that the whole of Wales would qualify for objective 1 status, so the comparison with Ireland is not fair, because the whole of Ireland qualified—or did it? I looked at the figures, and found that it barely qualified. The highlands and islands of Scotland do not technically qualify, because they exceed the 75 per cent. mark, and neither does Merseyside, for the same reason. The fact is that nobody made the case for Wales when these matters were being discussed. It may well be that we can argue about the figures, but what is not arguable is the loss that Wales has suffered as a result of the failure to secure that funding.
We have heard that Ireland benefits substantially from objective 1 status—with a population of around 3.5 million, it receives about £5 billion over five years. With a population of 2.8 million, Wales receives about a tenth of that sum. Would Wales have received substantially more if we had secured objective 1 status? I have calculated that, over five years, the loss to Wales resulting from the failure to secure objective 1 status is about £1 billion. That is a substantial sum.
We have also heard that we might have benefited from cohesion funds, for which Wales would easily qualify. The qualifying standard in that respect is 90 per cent. of GDP, whereas Wales has only 83 per cent.

Mr. Denzil Davies: The hon. Gentleman says that Wales would easily qualify for cohesion funds, but that would be true only if Wales was a member of the Council of Ministers. Is that the proposition he is advancing?

Mr. Jones: Of course, the hon. Gentleman is correct. Under the current rules, only member states can qualify for cohesion funds—but why were cohesion funds established in the first place? They were established because the European Union decided that it was important to have social and economic cohesion in the run-up to economic and monetary union.

Mr. Richards: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jones: No, I listened to the hon. Gentleman, and he must now listen to me.
My point is that the Maastricht treaty contained a specific commitment to social and economic cohesion; accompanying that was a recognition that there would be parts of the European Union that would need assistance to qualify under the strict convergence criteria, which were extremely monetarist in tone. What emerged from negotiations by the Commission and from European Union guidelines was that structural funds were doubled over a period, so as to assist those poorer and peripheral regions. The money was devoted to helping countries such as Wales to qualify, yet Wales gets not a single penny piece more under the regional funds from 1994–99 than we received under the previous regime.

Mr. Denzil Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jones: No, I have given way once; I will not give way again. I must finish my point.
The reason why structural funds were increased so substantially was to help countries such as Wales and Scotland and the poorer regions of England.

Mr. Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jones: No, I have made it perfectly clear that I will not give way. The right hon. Gentleman has already had the opportunity to develop his arguments.

Mr. Davies: This is a debate.

Mr. Jones: I did give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Davies: Once.

Mr. Jones: Once is enough in the present circumstances.
The structural funds that were devoted to regions such as Wales should have come to Wales. It is a bogus argument to say that Wales would not qualify when it patently does.
There is one other difficulty in relation to regional funding, which is that the way in which Wales is divided for regional fund purposes means that we would not have qualified under the old rules. In other words, the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics II areas

divided Wales into two regions, not four. The problem with that is that, as north-west Wales and north-east Wales are joined, and there is a similar pattern in south Wales, the western seaboard of Wales or the valleys of south Wales could not qualify. The Welsh Office has recognised that difficulty, and the Commission is to consider redrawing the map of Wales for European Union funding purposes. Let us hope that this time the Welsh Office gets it right; it will receive Opposition Members' support to ensure that that happens.
There is a clear case for designating the western seaboard of Wales a special region, because it already has Interreg funding. Nonsensically, under the Interreg initiative, the western seaboard of Wales will collect about £10 million over five years, whereas the eastern seaboard of Ireland will receive £70 million. The difference in population accounts for part of the difference, but the main difference is that that part of Ireland has objective 1 status, whereas we have objective 5b status. That is grossly unfair, and even under the current system it is possible for us to ensure that objective 1 status applies to the western seaboard of Wales.
We know that the Commissioner for Regional Policy in Brussels is considering ways of changing the operation of regional funding; she is saying that regional funding will be far more concentrated in years to come. She wants smaller areas to benefit; funding will be more focused. Wales, as it is currently organised and constituted for funding, would lose even more under that system. To ensure that the parts of Wales that should benefit are taken into account, we must bear those factors in mind during renegotiation of regional policy—which will be necessary as we seek expansion into eastern Europe.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: In relation to the next reclassification, which the hon. Gentleman knows is currently a matter to be considered, the area he mentioned covers Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwynedd and Powys. Is he saying that Clwyd and Powys should be separated from Dyfed and Gwynedd, and therefore should not have the best opportunity of participating in bids for European funding? Is that his argument?

Mr. Jones: I did not say that; what I said was clear. The western seaboard of Wales already secures Interreg funding. That area, taken together, would qualify for objective 1 status. The Minister knows well that parts of Clwyd and Powys would qualify, as they currently do, under objective 5b. He also knows well that neither Clwyd nor Powys would qualify for objective 1. I am asking the Welsh Office to argue the case to maximise the benefit for Wales—objective 1 in parts of Wales and objective 5b in other parts of Wales. That is what he should argue for.
Under the scheme that I have proposed, no part of Wales would lose, but more areas would benefit.
I conclude by addressing an important fact that is close to the Minister's heart, and that I hope he comments on when he winds up tonight—the need for us to get cracking with setting up an agri-environmental scheme for the whole of Wales. He knows that it has been said that the Tir Cymen scheme is wonderful. The environmentally sensitive areas that we are developing—the best bits of Tir Cymen—are being taken on board. We also have several other small agri-environmental schemes.
I was very surprised to hear the Secretary of State talk about the review of Tir Cymen. I should have thought that we have now had a good deal of experience of that scheme, which is very beneficial and is welcomed by farmers. Five years ago, farmers probably would not have embraced Tir Cymen as they have, and we would not have witnessed the developments in the environmentally sensitive area schemes.
The time has come for the Welsh Office to make up its mind. Is it in favour of an all-Wales scheme? If so, how will such a scheme be funded—may we be told today? We know that an analysis by Professor Gareth Wyn Jones says that the net cost of that scheme would be about £20 million to £25 million. Does the Welsh Office agree? It is very important for Welsh farmers especially to know before the general election the position of the Conservative party and the Government on that issue, and I hope that the Minister will have something to say about that.

Mr. Alan W. Williams: In today's debate there has been an end-of-term feeling, with three Members—the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts), the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell)—probably making their final contribution to our annual Welsh day debate. I add to the tributes that hon. Members have paid to their invaluable contributions to our debates over the years, and wish them well in their future careers, be they in the other place or elsewhere.
I want to discuss devolution. To emphasise the end-of-term feeling, this will be the last speech, as it were, by a Member representing the Carmarthen constituency. It is an historic constituency, which has produced many surprises at general elections, but at the next general election it splits. There will be two Members—both Labour, we hope—one for Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South, and myself as the candidate for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.
Were it not for the Carmarthen constituency, the subject of devolution might not have been debated as vigorously as it has been in the past few months—or as vigorously as it will be in the next few months. In a by-election in 1966, Carmarthen returned the first nationalist Member of Parliament, Gwynfor Evans. That was a sea change in Celtic politics because, within a year, at a by-election in Scotland, the first Scottish nationalist Member was returned, and between 1970 and 1974 the nationalist parties peaked at a total of 12 or 14 Members of Parliament.
At about that time, the Conservative and Labour parties thought much about the constitution, and whether it should take account of the call for greater say in our government in Wales and in Scotland. I have been very much affected by such arguments. My regular contestants are the Conservative and Welsh national parties; I take an interest in what they say, and must rebut their arguments.
My commitment to devolution predates the 1966 by-election in Carmarthen. As a young student at Oxford, I attended a Liberal club meeting on decentralisation. I cannot remember whether Jo Grimond or Jeremy

Thorpe spoke, but I do remember being very impressed generally by the arguments made that evening—that Britain has a uniquely centralist form of government, that in every country in Europe and most countries worldwide, there is much stronger local or regional government, and that it would be sensible if, in our structures, more power was devolved to the regions.
I have always thought of devolution to Wales and Scotland in the wider context of regional government throughout Britain. Over the years, the system that I have come to admire is the German lander system, which allows strong local government. Some of the lander are controlled by the SPD, some by the Christian Democrats and some by Green-SPD alliances. The Liberal party and the FBT are also involved. I should like to see a similar form of government evolve in Britain.
I did not join the Labour party until 1977. I was not politically active until then. In 1977, however, it was very much our policy to set up assemblies for Wales and Scotland, and in 1979 I worked hard on the campaign to establish an assembly in Wales. Unfortunately, the result of that campaign was strong opposition to such an assembly—and we felt that during the campaign, even in Carmarthen, in south Wales. It was difficult to persuade our party members to work for the campaign. Nevertheless, as the Government will recognise by the end of the year, opinion has changed profoundly.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman—who was obviously involved in that campaign, as I was—recalls that, some time before the campaign started, opinion polls were saying that people in Wales were in favour of an assembly. In fact, the Western Mail published the result of a poll to that effect. What the hon. Gentleman is describing is the way in which opinion changed during the referendum campaign itself. Does he share that view?

Mr. Williams: I accept that. Before the referendum, many opinion polls were very encouraging, in that they indicated support for an assembly. What they did not take into account was the party's opposition at grass-roots level, which is a statistical fact.
During the 1980s, the feeling changed substantially, mainly because of a succession of Conservative Governments. The people of Wales and Scotland are left of centre, and the fact that we have had 18 years of Conservative rule has been deeply frustrating for them. They feel that, if there were a Parliament in Edinburgh and an assembly in Cardiff, those bodies would act as bulwarks against the excesses of Conservative Governments.
Another reason for the change of feeling is the Conservative party's treatment of quangos—the increase in their budgets and their powers, and, more particularly, the way in which their membership has been manipulated so that the people of Wales are not represented. That is true at all levels: it applies to trusts, the Welsh Development Agency and the development board. Conservative placemen are put in charge of the whole plethora of quangos, and people have become very cynical about their composition.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) made some excellent comments about Dyfed Powys health authority. The Minister is currently


a victim of one of its directives—or, at least, of a consultative paper. The authority seems to have no accountability. I do not quite echo the hon. and learned Gentleman's call for the resignation of its members, but I certainly think that the document should be scrapped, and that the authority should return to square one. As a quango, it illustrates the democratic deficit.
A third reason for the sea change in public opinion is that the last four Secretaries of State for Wales have not come from Wales. Lord Crickhowell, formerly Member of Parliament for Pembroke, was not very popular, and did not have a typically Welsh personality; none the less, he was from Wales, and represented a Welsh constituency.
I am not anti-English, and I acknowledge the validity of the West Lothian question, but there is something curious about the fact that the last four Secretaries of State have been the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and his predecessors the right hon. Members for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the former Members of Parliament for Wirral and for Worcester. None of them was elected by any of the people of Wales, yet they have run the Welsh Office. The current Secretary of State is affable and able, and has many good qualities, but why should he decide how much should be spent on health, social services and highways in Wales, and where bypasses in Wales should be built? He has only got to know Wales in the past three or four years.
I know that our policy in favour of an assembly for Wales is not robust enough for some elements of Welsh public opinion. That obviously applies to the Welsh national party, and it may apply to some members of the Labour and Liberal parties. In the past 15 years, however, we have sincerely tried to develop a consensus—a policy on which the people of Wales can unite.
That consensus will achieve two main objectives. First, it will democratise the Welsh Office, so that decisions currently taken without accountability by civil servants working under the Secretary of State's direction will be discussed much more thoroughly. Such a forum will lead to better decision-making. Secondly, it will allow us to make quangos more accountable.
Later this year, once we have a Labour Government again, there will be referendums. By autumn, there will have been referendums in Wales and Scotland. It is often forgotten that we also propose an all-London body to take over the responsibilities of the old Greater London council—again, subject to a referendum. We propose proportional representation, or a strong element of it, to provide a wider base and more accurately reflect the political geography of Wales.
I see the assemblies in Wales and London, and the Parliament in Scotland, as part of a much more long-term trend. Once the Scottish Assembly has been established—within three to five years—the north-east and north-west of England will no doubt demand their own assemblies, again subject to referendums, and those assemblies should be granted. In the next 10 years, under continuing Labour or Liberal-Labour Governments, the people of the south-east, the south and East Anglia will begin to look at what is happening in the north and in Scotland, and will think, "We could have a Tory-controlled assembly in our area." They will realise that the powers that those other bodies have are very proper, and gradually,

over 10 or 20 years, we shall move towards that lander system in which governments share power. Central Government will remain at Westminster, but there will, very properly, be a regional tier.
I was encouraged, although not surprised, by what the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) said last Sunday. I watched the interview live on Sunday morning, and I was impressed by his comments. Of course, he has more time to examine the issues than the rest of us. I have a transcript of what he said. First, there was his put-down of what the Prime Minister had said about breaking the nation: he said how absurd that was.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: May I put the record straight? The hon. Gentleman may recall that, when the last Labour Government presented a Bill to introduce evolution, a number of Labour Members voted against it or abstained. Five Conservatives voted with the Labour party, one of whom was my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). He has held that view for a number of years.

Mr. Williams: Absolutely. He has been consistent on many issues over the years. I respect him greatly for that, and for his judgment. History might have been quite different if he had been around during the last 20 years. This is what he said last Sunday morning:
If we"—
a Conservative Government—
had been returned in 1974, we would have gone ahead with it, because we believed it was for the good of the UK as well as of Scotland … We gave this system to Canada, we gave it to Australia, we gave it to South Africa, we gave it to Central Africa, we gave it to the Caribbean, and with the Americans and the French we gave it to Germany.
Handled clumsily, regional government, a strong regional tier, could threaten to split the United Kingdom; but handled properly, and in an evolutionary way, it would markedly improve the government of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Donald Anderson: I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) in commending the contribution to the House of the three hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, who are to retire. We heard three remarkable valedictory speeches. Each of those hon. Members is a very considerable parliamentarian, with different contributions. One was a Minister of long standing on the Conservative Benches. Another is a distinguished lawyer, who has brought his experience and expertise in the law very effectively to the House. Finally, there is my good friend and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell), who is a much more distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs than was his predecessor.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gower has shown tonight that he has a great grasp of detail of the Welsh scene. I was interested in what he and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) said about the recent initiative of the chairman of Dyfed Powys health authority. I hope that, given the consensus in certain areas of the debate, I can make a proposal that will be accepted


by both sides of the House. If the Government sack the chairman of Dyfed Powys health authority, a good and obvious successor would be a gentleman who still lives in the area of the health authority, who hails from Tumbl—whether upper or lower Tumble, I am not sure—and who will reside in Carmarthen, teaching at the college there. Therefore, I formally propose to the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Gower should become chairman of Dyfed Powys health authority.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Nigel Evans: Do we have a seconder?

Mr. Anderson: Perhaps you will accept my motion, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
More seriously, I wish to make two points. I shall not ask the Minister for an answer tonight, but I respectfully urge him to examine demand-led element funding within the further education sector, and the impact that removal of that funding would have on further education in Wales. That matter is causing great concern in Wales. I understand that a decision is imminent. Perhaps he will write to me about it.
We had a debate in the House on 19 February, during which only English Members spoke, mainly from the north-west. The situation in Wales, however, is very different. In my judgment, there should be a Welsh solution to the problem, which would not result in exceeding existing budgets. The Minister will know that DLE funding in Wales has been used to enable mainstream growth in FE for the 16 to 19 age group, and, more important in some ways, to widen participation for adults. There is not a franchise problem in Wales, as there is in England.
I commend the Government for their initiative on DLE funding, which has enabled extra, cost-effective growth. For example, in the current year, DLE payments will reach £4.5 million, which will result in an extra 20,000 students. Swansea college—first under the distinguished but just retired principal, Cyril Lewis, and now under principal Keith Elliott—has the Eastside initiative, which particularly helps disadvantaged groups in my constituency. I opened the Morriston office of the Eastside initiative. It is reaching out to groups that would not otherwise come into contact with continuing education.
Swansea college is already 22 per cent. above target. The result of removing DLE for 1997–98 would be a severe reduction of provision, affecting 16 to 19-year-old students, and particularly the wider groups of adults who have been so beneficially affected by the Eastside initiative in my constituency.
In Wales, it cannot seriously be argued by the Government that the DLE is out of control. Wales is not three years in arrears, as in England. The FE sector in Wales has achieved controlled growth in the number of students since 1993. In my view, there should be a Welsh solution in the Welsh Office to the problem, which is essentially different from that in England. As the Minister will know, principals in FE colleges have a four-year cycle. There is now a real danger—the problem is imminent—that DLE funding will be removed, which would have a major and adverse affect.

Mr. Jon Owen Jones: There is a unique Welsh institution in my constituency, St. David's

college, which is the only sixth form college in Wales. The principal tells me that each student at that college receives between £400 and £500 less than students in similar English institutions, that it had to bear a 14 per cent. cut in funding last year, and that it will have to bear a cut of 19 per cent. in the next three years, even though it is very successful and is educating more students each year.

Mr. Anderson: And it is doing what the Government want, in terms of extending education in that key group. My hon. Friend makes a similar point to mine.
I understand that the Welsh Office was originally sympathetic to the continuation of the scheme, but the problem arose when English authorities and the English Department for Education and Employment became involved and suggested that there should not be a Welsh solution. Our problems are difficult, but with good will, surely we can provide a solution within Wales. I do not expect an answer when the Minister winds up, but I hope that he will respond seriously to the real problem that FE colleges face. What is the purpose of the Welsh Office, if it cannot take independent decisions on matters that affect Wales? I hope that we are not carried in the slipstream of England in such matters, when our problems are fundamentally different.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) mentioned the Welsh question. There is indeed a Welsh question. It is sad that in last Thursday's debate on the constitution, only four of my Welsh colleagues were able to speak. We felt somewhat marginalised, as if it was a case of for Wales read England, or, perhaps, for Wales read Scotland.
I shall comment on the themes that the Government put forward in respect of their absolutist, no-change policy. The Prime Minister said that the debate should be the start of a great debate on the constitution. I have been around for some time, and recall that, after the defeat of the proposal of the Labour Government of 1974–79, the then Secretary of State for Wales, now Lord Crickhowell, made a similar proposal for a great debate. He talked about the possibility of a Welsh council, and the need for a strategic group within Wales. The idea may have been flawed, but at least it was speedily forgotten.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: The hon. Gentleman is right. I recall Lord Crickhowell saying at that time that he did not think that the 1979 vote was the end of the debate. That vote had its effect on the political parties. For instance, Plaid Cymru, which believes in independence for Wales, had virtually two lines on devolution in its 1979 manifesto. There is no doubt that the result was regarded as a sea change, even though it is right to remark on the fact that Lord Crickhowell said that the debate should continue.

Mr. Anderson: It was the elephant on the doorstep: no one can gainsay that. But Lord Crickhowell made a pledge to initiate a debate. I merely ask: what is the Government's motive in seeking to raise this debate now? Are they not indulging in the politics of fear? As we approach the election, the Government are trying to wrap themselves in a flag. That is the essence of a unionist party. They want to bang the anti-foreign drum, especially on Europe, and to wrap themselves in the flag on Scotland and Wales. They are, in effect, reducing themselves to an English national party. It is not serious or credible politics.
Amid the debates about constitutional change, it is sad that the Government have set their face against any form of change. That contrasts with the 1970s, when many hon. Members who are now on the Government Benches were openly saying that problems of governance had to be addressed. There is a range of problems: the House of Lords, the incorporation of the European convention on human rights, our voting system and the governance of Wales and Scotland. It is incredible that the governing party takes an absolutist no position on all those major issues.
That is not how our constitution evolved. When problems arise, our political system usually evolves to accommodate them. Like it or not, there is a Scottish question, and, to a lesser extent, a Welsh question. It is absurd that the Conservative party has traditionally set itself against any change until that change becomes a tradition. We saw that happen with the Welsh Development Agency and with the Welsh Office.
Another of the Government's themes is their argument that devolution will lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. Failure to recognise the Scottish problem and the Welsh problem is more likely to lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. It is insulting to say that the people of Wales and Scotland are so politically unsophisticated that a degree of decentralisation, and an exercise in democratic control over the cluster of administrative bodies in Edinburgh and in Cardiff, will inevitably lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom, whereas Catalonia, Rhône-Alpes and the other motor regions that the Welsh Office and the Government want to link up with can have experiments in decentralisation without people fearing that those countries will break up. Germany has the länder: because of its history, Bavaria is different from Nordrhein Westphalia. There is devolution à la carte in Spain, where Catalonia is more prosperous and has a more developed sense of identity than Valencia.
There are different models. History will find the Government funny peculiar in saying that, despite all these great debates, we cannot have any change. In the 1970s, the Conservative party was prepared seriously to enter into a debate to address real problems. Now there is a total veto and it rejects any change.
Alas, last Thursday and now, Conservative Members have parroted the West Lothian question as if its mere repetition will end the argument. Of course it is a serious question, and I concede that at one level it is unanswerable. It should be put in the context of the problem, and we should seek to address that problem, with all the disadvantages that may indeed flow. We should also take into account the Northern Irish precedent, and the possibility of an English Grand Committee.
I accept that that may mean moving to a quasi-federal solution. Everyone accepts that the proposed changes for Scotland and Wales are a transitional position, and that they will move in different ways. There may be English assemblies. At least there will be a debate on the nature of our constitution. We should not be frightened into saying that at the end of the road the United Kingdom will be broken up. The objective is to allow ordinary people to have a greater say in the governance of their country.
I played a role in the 1970s debate. At that time I was, on balance, against the proposals of my own party, and I voted consistently against them. I am now, on balance, in favour of my party's proposals. I do not pretend in an

absolutist way that there are not advantages and disadvantages: as with all political problems, there are pros and cons.
I shall mention the factors that have induced me to change my mind—I shall just give the headlines because of the time. The first factor is the Thatcherite centralisation and the removal or neutering of the intermediary bodies between the state and the citizen, such as local government, which has been put in a greater financial straitjacket, and the trade unions. I have already mentioned the European dimension. I envisage a cluster of institutions in Brussels, another in London and another in Cardiff, each with its own form of democratic control. The second factor is the identity of Wales, which I believe is of value and should be enhanced by a Welsh Assembly.
I am not alone in changing my position. I read the interesting interview with David Waterstone in the Western Mail, which I thought was extremely significant. I recently met a senior business man who is known to many of us. He told me that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was the missionary who converted him to devolution. When the right hon. Gentleman slashed the grant to the Countryside Commission for Wales by half, and there was nothing we could do about it—we had no say, and there was no accountability—that business man began to ask various questions about the governance of Wales.
Quangos have been used ruthlessly by the Government, who cannot win by democratic means. They have filled them with their placemen. I shall not mention poor Dr. Gwyn Jones—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) has been doing a demolition job on the learned doctor for some time. The man who is now the Conservative candidate for Worcester is an able and likeable man, but he had hardly arrived in my city before he was put on a health authority. Many people were born and brought up there and have served the city well, but they have no serious prospect of getting on the Conservative quango. That sort of thing annoys ordinary, right-thinking people, who may not be politically minded otherwise.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: Was the hon. Gentleman here when the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) said how balanced the board of the Welsh Development Agency was, because it had trade union and local government representatives, and all the rest of it?

Mr. Anderson: This is something of a death-bed repentance. If I and the Minister, who is a reasonable man, except when he speaks from the Front Bench, were to have a cup of tea and to consider the history of Conservative appointments to the Welsh Development Agency, the pattern until now and the recent change, we would both come to the same conclusion, which would not be encouraging to the Government.
Another factor is that there is now an increasing feeling of togetherness in Wales and the building of a Welsh community and identity, partly—and I commend the Government for this—because of their Welsh Language Act 1993, which has been a positive development. Language could be so divisive in Wales, as it is in places such as Belgium. Historians will give great credit to the Government for the Act, which builds on consensus and has helped to remove part of the potential divisiveness within the Welsh polity.
I hope that the assembly will develop Welsh consciousness, which is, alas, all too lacking in our present age. I have a nightmare of a Murdoch-run age, with everyone speaking in mid-atlantic accents and watching the same shows. There is some value in diversity, which I hope the assembly will reflect.
That is why I applaud the form of proportional representation that has been proposed by the Labour party. The proposal starts from the basis that there should be a reasonable number of Members—60 Members—and that the electoral areas should be well known. That is why we have selected the Westminster constituencies and the Euro-constituencies. It also accepts that there should be an attempt to include everyone in Wales, and hence to ensure that people from each part of Wales are represented in the new assembly, according to the strength of their party. That is a good starting point. In so far as electoral systems can have consequences, that will be a means of bringing the diversity of Wales together.
In that context, I find the attitude of Plaid Cymru puzzling. It is being coy and says that we cannot count on its support in the referendum. Is it a party, or is it a pressure group? Is it trying to be serious, or is it playing games? It must know that, historically, a chance to make a change of this substance comes only once in a generation or so.
Think back to 1966, when the Welsh Office was formed. Some people said, "This is such a puny creature. We do not want it. People might vote against it." Let us compare the Welsh Office of today to the Welsh Office of 1966. It has moved sensibly, with additions by the Government and by my party, according to the wishes of the people of Wales, and at the speed that they wanted.
It is absolutely absurd for Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalists, to say that we cannot count on them. They must know that this is the historic opportunity to bring greater democracy to the governance of Wales. If they seek to sabotage or not to help that process, they will do a great disservice to the people of Wales. The giant step is to get an assembly. Thereafter, it will move as fast and as far as the people of Wales want.
I have set out my personal credo of why I have moved in respect of Welsh devolution. There is a Welsh dimension and it is of value. Obviously, as we saw last Thursday, there cannot be a serious debate before the general election, but I hope that afterwards there will be such a debate up to the referendums in September—a healthy national debate, building on the strength of our community and on our identity, which is diverse, real and of value, when globalisation and all the forces that internationalise us can lead to such a dreary sameness.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: This has been a remarkable St. David's day debate on Welsh affairs for many reasons. First, it is the last St. David's day debate before an election, which on present form looks as though it may bring to an end, within eight or nine weeks, 18 years of continuous government by the Conservative party. Secondly, the debate coincides with a by-election in the Wirral, which again, according to form—we do not know what has happened today—may put the Government in a minority position for the first time in 18 years.
Thirdly, the debate has been remarkable because of the retirements that have been celebrated in the valedictory addresses, which we have heard from three corners of the House, if I can put it that way. The right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) said goodbye to such debates in his inimitable style as an old Harrovian, with the emphasis of course on the Harrovian. He said that some people might consider him to be servile, but that he saw himself as humble. He has made countless distinguished speeches. He may end up serving the Palace of Westminster in another capacity, but we know not yet.
I should also mention the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), a distinguished lawyer from the Liberal party who has been in the House for many more years than I have. In the past four years at least, we have not had to worry about splits in the Welsh Liberal party. He has given remarkable service during that period and previously.
Like many others, including the Secretary of State, the hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the bizarre procedure of the Dyfed Powys health authority, which announced the closure of eight community hospitals, without naming them. The Secretary of State administered what seemed to be a rebuke that may be acted upon—I do not know whether Mrs. Bourne, the chair of the health authority, will resign tomorrow.
That brings me to the third retiree, my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell), my mother's and brother's Member of Parliament who has been Chairman of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs for a long time. Whichever party is elected, the next Government will have to give serious thought to the best way of employing my hon. Friend's remarkable talent in the public service. One could say that a Welsh triple crown of retirees have made their valedictory addresses tonight. I hope that they do not become a Bermuda triangle of people lost to the public service when they cease to be in the House.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery referred to the importance of the national health service in Wales, not only because of the problems of the Dyfed Powys health authority, but, as we should always remember in a St. David's day debate, because of the remarkable contribution that Welsh politicians have made to founding the modern welfare state.
Being a Liberal, the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned Lloyd George. As a Labour Member, I would add the two other distinguished names of Jim Griffiths and Aneurin Bevan. Between them, those three politicians erected the triple crown of the welfare state by introducing old-age pensions, universal national insurance and the national health service.
One might say that the Welsh contribution to modern British politics is the welfare state. It arises from Welsh history and the difficult and dangerous occupations in which Welsh people have traditionally been engaged—mining, quarrying, steel making, tinplate and so on—which made people concerned about what would happen if the roof fell in, for example. A miner might think, "I have money today, but what would happen tomorrow if I broke my back in a pit accident?" and others might worry about something happening in the dangerous and dirty occupations of most of our ancestors.
The speeches to which I have referred have given us a picture of Welsh debates over the past 10 years or more and that is enormously valuable to those of us who hope to be here after the next election on whichever side of the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gower, a distinguished son of the famous village of Tumble, also mentioned the 14-year wait for a cardiac surgery unit in Morriston hospital. It was a famous pre-election promise by Lord Crickhowell just before the 1983 election. The unit will open later this year, some 14 years later.

Mr. Donald Anderson: It did not help him in Swansea.

Mr. Morgan: Perhaps not. That is the great paradox of Welsh politics. Whatever Conservative Secretaries of State think they are donating to an area, they certainly do not get any reward from the people of Wales.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gower asked what we should do about the withdrawal of NHS dentistry from large areas of Wales. Should we solve the problem by utilising salaried dentists employed by the health authorities or by expanding community dental services that are provided by the NHS? We have never had a clear answer on that.
My hon. Friends the Members for Gower and for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) mentioned the Sea Empress disaster. We are just past the anniversary of that—it was about 13 months ago. I imagine that I am speaking for hon. Members on both sides when I say that we expect a proper statement—I know that the matter falls primarily to the Secretary of State for Transport—and some debating time, if possible, on the report of the marine accidents, investigation branch of the Department of Transport. The people of Wales will insist on that as part of their rights of parliamentary accountability, although I fully appreciate that the Secretary of State for Wales cannot make that promise on behalf of his colleague at the Department of Transport.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), who is certainly not retiring, made two points. The first was about transforming the Welsh education system to concentrate on elite education. I would prefer to give greater priority to the problems of vocational education and the shortage of engineers that we shall have, to ensure that the new firms that move into Wales do not take all the engineers from the existing factories, thereby creating a crisis out of the success in getting new firms to move in.
I believe that the Secretary of State referred to the headline in yesterday's Western Mail about south-east Wales being the easiest place to get a job. That newspaper article was based on a report from the Gwent training and enterprise council into that problem, because it was being lobbied by 200 business men from Gwent who were worried that there were not enough engineers to staff the middle management, the technical side, the quality control side and the design side of the new firms, such as Newport Wafer-Fab and LG, which are moving in.
Those new jobs create a problem at the level of skilled labour, technician labour and graduate engineer labour. That is a problem that the Welsh economy must address now—not the creation of an elite for sport or the old professions, but the creation of an expanded vocational

engineering service and the removal of the low prestige that vocational subjects still have relative to academic subjects.
Another issue addressed in many speeches is the Welsh fiscal deficit. The Secretary of State has published two booklets on the subject, referring to Wales having 5 per cent. of the United Kingdom population, but producing only 4 per cent. of the tax revenue. That is not because the Welsh are better tax dodgers than the English, I assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in case you are concerned on behalf of your constituents. It is simply a reflection of the fact that, although it has 5 per cent. of the population, Wales has only 4 per cent. of the UK gross domestic product.
That fact has emerged from many other studies. Only last month a study was published on regional trends or economic trends—I forget which—showing that gross domestic product in Wales, which is one of those boring statistics that nobody understands, has fallen again relative to the United Kingdom average. In 1995, it was down from 84 per cent. to 83 per cent. That means that the average family income of Mr. and Mrs. Jones and the kids in the back streets or the valleys of Wales has fallen and can now be said to be 20 per cent. below the UK average. Someone whose income is 20 per cent. below the UK average will clearly pay 20 per cent. less tax than the UK average.
Those figures can be used in various ways. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli used them in the context of the Maastricht debate and the issue of the fiscal deficit. My point is—

Mr. Denzil Davies: For the record, my remarks were not made in the context of a Maastricht debate. I said that a country with a fiscal deficit of 15 per cent. could not exist as an independent country.

Mr. Morgan: I paraphrased my right hon. Friend wrongly. He is right. He specifically excluded Maastricht. He used the figures in his argument against the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones). How does the conclusion in the Secretary of State's booklet that Wales has only 4 per cent. of Great Britain's GDP and 5 per cent. of its population fit the picture painted in his speech? We must say, "Hang on a minute, Secretary of State. Where is this land of milk and honey with its vast numbers of jobs that you are claiming to be leading, indeed to have created?"

Mr. Richards: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Morgan: No, I will not give way. If it is true that the Secretary of State has created all those jobs—I have certainly heard such claims from him and his four or five predecessors in the 10 years that I have been in the House—and high standards of health and education, how can the statistics in his own booklets on the Welsh fiscal deficit and Welsh GDP indicate that average family income in Wales is 20 per cent. below the UK average? To take the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli, as of this moment, according to the statistics—

Mr. Richards: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Morgan: I have already told the hon. Gentleman that I will not give way.
If Wales were an independent country or, to make it sound less controversial, were counted as an independent country, and therefore in the OECD GDP league table, it would be 21st out of the 26 countries. We would be ahead of Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey—and that is it. I think that that is an accurate picture of where we are at the moment. What a remarkable contrast that is to the picture painted by the Secretary of State.
The Secretary of State mentioned that, over the past 10 years, manufacturing employment was up in Wales. "What a remarkable thing that was," he said. When the Government came to power in 1979, 300,000 people were employed in manufacturing—but only 200,000 people are now. In fact, there has been a net loss of a third of manufacturing jobs over the 18 years that the Government have been in office.
The Secretary of State's speech was very much like a colonial governor's report back to the colonial office of 50 years ago, saying that the crops are growing well, exports are up, the natives are happy, there are a few noises about constitutional change but those can soon be sorted out by sending another boat-load of trinkets. That was really all he was saying. He was not looking at the bottom line, the acid test: how prosperous is the country that he is claiming is doing so well? That is the con trick.
The Secretary of State used the words "con trick", especially with regard to the health service. When he talks about increasing expenditure on the NHS next year, why does he always use the weasel-word, con-trick phrase of "compared with the plans for the present year"? Why does he not compare the figures with actual expenditure? He says that, when comparing expenditure this year—he means actual expenditure, which is what the Health Minister says whenever he makes a speech—with actual expenditure next year, it will increase by more than the rate of inflation. Yet the plans that he has announced for next year do not represent an increase of more than the rate of inflation.
The Bank of England says that inflation this year will be 2.9 per cent., yet the Government's plans, which have been announced, represent only 2.4 per cent above this year's health expenditure. If the Secretary of State is talking about con tricks, I am afraid that he must look at the use that he makes of the health statistics by leaving out the fact that he must go back to planned expenditure not actual expenditure for the present year.
I should like to refer briefly to the constitutional issue, which has come up time and again. Its broad thrust is whether being interested in constitutional change makes Wales turn inwards as a country, which I think was what the Secretary of State was saying, although how he would know I do not exactly know, or whether it helps Wales to emerge on the international and European stage more than it has in recent years, as we would claim. As we see it, the European summit is a huge opportunity to put Wales and its capital on the map. We are all absolutely delighted—I believe that we are all delighted—that it will be held for the first time in Cardiff in June next year. In the following year—1999—the rugby world cup final will be held in Wales.
By their very nature, the European summit and the rugby world cup are temporary, although they will be huge boosts to Wales and to perceptions of Wales abroad.

Once the caravan has passed, things will go back to normal. If Wales wants not merely to be put on the map but to stay on the map, the creation of a Welsh Assembly is absolutely essential. An assembly will be the final part of a triple crown of achievements for which we should aim in 1997–99. I also hope that the timing will work out so that the first meeting of the Welsh Assembly will be held on the same day as the world cup final. I say that not because we want to ensure that a Welsh team is playing in something on that day, but because it will give a permanent boost to Wales.
The Secretary of State will have moved on by that time. He will have become the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in the current Home Secretary's shadow Cabinet. He may even be enjoying himself there. Indeed, we have been told that he now has a private aeroplane, because he has been sponsored by some wealthy aeroplane-owning plutocrat. He might use that aeroplane to leave Wales—like the last American to leave Saigon—before the Welsh people take over and push him out. The Welsh people might say to him, "You've been here for a couple of years, and we're grateful that you've filled the job while we were waiting for a Labour Government. But now you've done your job. Get in that plane and go, because we need a Labour Government to put Wales back on its feet and, through a Welsh Assembly, to put it permanently on the map."

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Jonathan Evans): In preparing for this debate, I thought that it might be helpful to cast my eye over some previous St. David's day debates. I entered the House at the previous general election, and, although I participated in St. David's day debates as a Back Bencher, this is the first time I have had the honour of replying to one. Looking through the speeches made in those debates, I was struck by those made last year, as they seem to show a consistent theme. It is interesting that the Labour party recently decided not to run with a series of advertisements based on the Mr. Men characters. If it had decided to do so, we would, of course, have seen on the Labour Benches Mr. Gloomy and Mr. Glum, who always appear at St. David's day debates.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), however, is the person who consistently does not appear. He was not in the Chamber for last year's St. David's day debate, and he is not here today.

Mr. Morgan: As the Secretary of State knew that the Labour party conference was in Llandudno, would not the right solution have been for him to lend his new private aeroplane to the shadow Secretary of State so that he could have gone to Llandudno after the debate?

Mr. Evans: I think that we have heard rather too much in this debate about rail and road services to Llandudno.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) and my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards) seem to know rather more about those services than the hon. Member for Caerphilly. However, I can cast some light on the matter. Today's newspaper states that the hon. Member for Caerphilly is in favour of a St. David's day holiday. He obviously decided—this year and last—to put that


preference into practice by taking a St. David's day holiday himself. I see from the Opposition Benches that he has been joined by virtually half his parliamentary party in missing the debate.
It is interesting to examine some of the remarks made in last year's debate—not least those made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). He was very generous, and said:
In the past 10 years, Wales has missed out on all the big new investment providing 2,000 jobs or more.
He detailed those investments, and said that there were
six big investments providing 2,000 and 3,000 jobs during the past eight or nine years
He said that Wales had got none of them. He then went on to say
We would have liked to have one of those firms and we might then have felt satisfied that Wales remained at the forefront of the Government's regional economic development effort."—[Official Report, 29 February 1996; Vol. 272, c. 1042.]
Those were his words in last year's debate. Within weeks, however, we had an announcement of 6,000 jobs at Newport.
In last year's debate, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West made 10 references to a company called Chunghwa Picture Tubes. Those of us who have listened to him repeatedly in debates know that 10 references to a company are only a few for him. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I listened for the name of LG in the hon. Gentleman's speech, but I am afraid that it did not spill from his lips. The hon. Gentleman is gloomy on every occasion.

Mr. Morgan: When the Under-Secretary reads Hansard tomorrow, he will find that I referred, in the most complimentary terms, to the arrival of LG, but I also referred to the fears expressed by 200 businesses in Gwent that, unless the Government got off their backside and did something about the supply of engineers, problems could be caused. Does he recall that, and will he now withdraw his stupid remarks?

Mr. Evans: I remember the hon. Gentleman making that point. I was listening keenly for the name of LG, because I had these references to earlier debates. I did not hear it. If the Hansard writers have managed to record one utterance of LG, I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I did not hear 10 references to LG like the 10 that he made when he attacked the Secretary of State 12 months ago. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) cannot just stand up and wave his notes.

Mr. Evans: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Morgan: Will the Under-Secretary give way?

Mr. Evans: No, I want to make some progress and to respond to some of the points made in the debate.
One of the other consistent themes of Welsh debates has been the contribution by my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy. On every occasion on which he has contributed, he has graced the proceedings. I am grateful

for the remarks which have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House praising his contribution. Their remarks were generous, and rightly so.
Everyone recalls the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy to the passing of the Welsh Language Act 1993 and his work to promote the Welsh language. The fact that Welsh is now taught in all our schools in the Principality is down to his efforts. We can also thank him for the establishment of the fourth television channel. People in Wales, whatever their political opinions, recognise that those changes are down to his efforts.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy should also take credit for the remarkable improvement in standards of education in Wales in the time he was Welsh Education Minister. I had a letter last week from someone in my constituency setting out the view that everything was wonderful in education in 1979, and then the Tories were elected and problems started. I have been involved in politics for longer than that, and I have a report produced and published in 1980 by the current director of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, who is not regarded as a supporter of the Conservative party. The report spoke of the widening gap in the performance of Welsh schoolchildren compared to English schoolchildren during the Labour Government. At the beginning of that Government's time in office, around a third of young people in Wales left school without any qualifications.
That point ties in with the refreshing and honest speech by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). He made an interesting contribution which I hope many people will read. He said that the problems went back more than 30 years and he was not seeking to make any party political point. The evidence is that there has been a remarkable improvement, although I recognise that there is more to be done. The gap has not totally closed yet, but it has narrowed remarkably in the past 18 years, largely because of the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy. I reiterate the point that, in the five years to 1979, the gap in performance widened, and that is a judgment on some of the claims about the likely performance of a Labour authority.
I did not follow entirely one of the arguments of the right hon. Member for Llanelli. I accept his points about the need to ensure that we do our utmost to develop as much talent as we can in the young people of Wales and to present them with as many opportunities as we can. He made a point about supporting the elite in the education system, and I seem to remember him saying that it was also important to try to get standards in some schools in Wales up to those of the best public schools in England—I think that those were his words. He will recall that our assisted places scheme provides places in schools in Wales that operate at that level. I found it difficult to reconcile his opposition to the assisted places scheme with some of his remarks.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) also made a valedictory speech, which gives me the opportunity to say to him that, although we have disagreed about a wide range of things, as constituency neighbours over the past five years we have also managed to find things on which, from time to time, we can agree, and advance the interests of the people of Wales. During the hon. and learned Gentleman's time in the House,


he has demonstrated his willingness to work in that way; I certainly know that he has done so during the years in which I have been here.
The hon. and learned Gentleman's contributions have always been interesting. I note what he said about Dyfed Powys health authority, but he does not require a further reply from me, because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already dealt specifically with his questions.
Both the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and the hon. Member for Ogmore (Sir R. Powell) gave what was, in my view, too negative an opinion of the health service. I remind them that, for about 37 of the 50 years of the existence of our national health service, a Conservative Government have been in office, building up that health service.
The Opposition sometimes want to portray an image of the Government as one in some sense committed to undermining the health service, but this is a health service that we have grown during the years in which we have been in government. The good things about our health service are things that we have developed, and we need to assert that much more strongly in the weeks, months and years ahead.
The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) also made a valedictory contribution, and I agree with everything that has been said about his chairmanship of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. He told the House that he had received a good deal of training, both from his predecessors and from others in the House, not least Leo Abse. The hon. Gentleman will know of my own personal connection with Leo Abse. Certainly there is a great deal to be learnt from somebody of such wide experience. I owe a personal debt to the hon. Member for Gower, because I have learnt much from him.
I am also grateful for the hon. Gentleman's observation, which in a way underpinned the debate, that he regarded all the people who had served with him on the Welsh Affairs Committee as friends in the House. Just about everybody who has contributed to the debate falls into that category, and the feeling is mutual—although I also share the view expressed in a telling intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West. It may be received rather better by the Opposition than by some of my hon. Friend's other interventions.
My hon. Friend tellingly pointed out that the hon. Member for Gower was saying how effective his work on the Welsh Affairs Committee had been, which showed how accountable our system of government is, here in the House. It is a shame that more attention is not given to the work undertaken by the Committee that the hon. Gentleman chaired, because it gives the lie to claims that Parliament is unaccountable.
The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) talked about a Welsh Assembly, and also spoke in glowing terms about my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). In my intervention, I tried to set the historical record clear.
The strictures of the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) about political appointments being made to all the public bodies in Wales sat rather ill with the fact that he then proceeded to propose the hon. Member for Gower as the next chairman of the health authority.

My knowledge of the old Labour party tells me that, irrespective of Lord Nolan, it seems to be a case of "back to the old days".

Mr. Donald Anderson: rose—

Mr. Evans: I am seeking to draw my remarks to a close.
The hon. Member for Swansea, East also said that he was concerned about the demand-led element in further education funding, and asked me to write to him. I shall be happy to do so, although I can tell him that I am aware of the position, and I am examining the options. I shall write to him in fuller terms in due course.
The hon. Gentleman went on to allege that we were a Unionist party, as though that was something of which we should be ashamed. From the time I made my maiden speech in the House, I have made it clear that I have no shame about the fact that I am a Unionist. The time was when the Labour party was a Unionist party, but we have come to question that now.

Mr. Anderson: The point I was making was that, as the Conservative party has lost support in both Wales and Scotland, it has retreated into being an English nationalist party.

Mr. Evans: It cannot be claimed that pointing out the disadvantages inherent in Labour's proposals for the creation of a separate Welsh Assembly means that we are an English nationalist party. That does not necessarily follow at all. The line that we are putting to the people of Wales and to the rest of the country is the same line as we were putting in 1979. I am bound to say that I remember those debates, and the way in which we were characterised at that time as isolated from Welsh opinion.
I remember that those campaigning for a yes vote produced a leaflet saying that, in fact, the only people opposed to an assembly were members of the Conservative party and members of the Country Landowners Association. They also produced cartoons at that time which portrayed a similar message. I recognise that we were helped, in that we had one or two Labour Members who were prepared to join us during the debate. I am bound to say that, in his heart of hearts, the hon. Member for Swansea, East knows that that opinion still lurks in the Labour party.

Mr. Morgan: What about the former Prime Minister?

Mr. Evans: My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup has been consistent in his view on this matter for more than 30 years. I well remember another leaflet produced by those campaigning for a yes vote which contained a photograph of my right hon. Friend and urged the people of Wales to vote yes because Mr. Heath was recommending it. I am bound to say that that has not been put forward by the Labour party as an explanation for the eventual result. Against a background in which those proposing the establishment of an assembly claimed the support of all within the trade unions, those within the Churches and the intelligentsia in Wales, the result was that the people of Wales voted by a margin of four to one against.
The hon. Member for Carmarthen was typically honest in responding to my question to him. The public mood in Wales in the late 1970s was very much more in favour of the establishment of an assembly than it was towards the conclusion of the debate on the referendum itself. There are a number of reasons, one of which was that the public in Wales had the opportunity of watching the way in which the debate went in Parliament. They saw that Members of Parliament from all parts of the UK had individual proposals for changes to the propositions, and we were able to engage in a debate and decide whether amendments should be made to legislation. That has always been the procedure of the House.
Those debates substantially informed the referendum debate and the final decision of the people of Wales. The Labour party proposes to have what it calls a pre-legislative vote, in which the people of Wales will be invited to vote on a paper produced by the Labour party without there being an opportunity to amend it. Presumably, Labour will then railroad those Members of Parliament who are here into the view that they should support that proposal, come what may. That is an

outrageous proposal, and Plaid Cymru must think so also. That is why it is arguing that there should be not pre-legislative choice, but a multi-option choice. In that regard, I do not share the view of the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) about a multi-option choice.
The answer is to ensure that we have a proper debate in the House before any such proposal is made. In the circumstances, it is clear that the Labour party is not prepared to go down that road, because it is fairly sure that the outcome of a referendum would be the same the next time.

Mr. Gyles Brandreth (Lord Commissioner to the Treasury): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved,
That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brandreth.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to Ten o'clock.